Parental Modeling and Normative Influence in Shaping Teenagers’ Phubbing: An Exploratory Study

Phubbing, the ignoring of one’s companions to pay attention to one’s phone, is ubiquitous. Yet far less is known about its interpersonal transmission. Based on the social learning theory and the theory of normative social behavior, this cross-sectional study tested the associations between perceived parental phubbing and teenagers’ phubbing. Two hundred ninety-nine Chinese teenagers (M = 14.03, SD = 0.87) answered questions about perceived parental phubbing, descriptive norms and injunctive norms of phubbing, and phubbing of themselves. The regression analyses showed that perceived parental phubbing was positively associated with teenagers’ phubbing and descriptive norms. The conditional process analyses showed that higher levels of perceived parental phubbing predicted higher levels of descriptive norms, which in turn predicted higher levels of teenagers’ phubbing. Moreover, the magnitude of the association between descriptive norms and teenagers’ phubbing was greater as injunctive norms became greater.