Application of latent class analysis in online emotion regulation in college students / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the relationship between the latent classes of online emotion regulation among college students and the distribution difference of different types on variables such as gender,grade,ages of surfing the net and so on.Methods:Totally 421 college students were assessed with Online Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (OERQ).Latent class analysis was used to identify online emotion regulation classes,and then analyzed the distribution of latent classes among different genders,grades and ages of surfing the net.Results:Two latent classes of online emotion regulation were identified,including online emotion inhibiting/ignoring class (37.6％) and online emotion venting class (62.4％).The prevalence of online emotion venting class among girls (56.6％ vs.3.8％),sophomores (36.3％ vs.11.9％),juniors (23.4％ vs.3.1％),those with more than 36 months of surfing the net (31.6％ vs.18.8％) were significantly higher than the other of the respective kind.Whereas,the rate of inhibiting/ignoring class among boys (32％ vs.7.6％),freshmen (20％ vs.5％) were significantly higher.Conclusion:It suggests that online emotion regulation could be divided into two different latent classes and prevalence of each class is significantly different in different genders,grades,and ages of surfing the net.