Emotional resilience and social network site addiction: The mediating role of emotional expressivity and the moderating role of type D personality

Abstract

With the popularity of social network sites (SNSs) among the younger generation, adolescent SNS addiction has become a serious and highly-concerned problem in modern society. Based on the perspective of positive psychology, the current study focused on the protective role of emotional resilience on SNS addiction among adolescents. Specifically, this study tested the mediating effect of emotional expressivity in the association between emotional resilience and SNS addiction, and whether the mediating processes were moderated by Type D personality. The research model was examined with 699 Chinese high school students (mean age = 13.31 years, SD = 0.79; 51.93% were boys). Our mediation analysis revealed that the ability to generate positive emotions (a mechanism of emotional resilience) positively predicted SNS addiction via increasing positive expressivity; the ability to recover quickly from negative emotions (another mechanism of emotional resilience) negatively predicted SNS addiction directly and via decreasing positive and negative expressivity. Moreover, the moderated mediation analysis indicated that Type D personality moderated the association between positive expressivity and SNS addiction, as well as the relationship between negative expressivity and SNS addiction. These findings highlight the importance of uncovering the mechanisms underlying the links between emotional resilience and SNS addiction, which helps to reduce the risk of SNS addiction among adolescents.