Personality beliefs as a predictor of smartphone addiction

ABSTRACT

Objective The purpose of this study is to determine the relation between smart phone addiction and personality beliefs of university students. Methods A total of 1007 students, 637 females (63.3%) and 370 males (36.7%) participated in the study. "Smart phone addiction scale short form" was used to measure smart phone addiction and "personality beliefs scale" was used to identify personality beliefs. Results According to the performed multiple regression analysis, it was found out that dependent, antisocial, narcissist, histrionic, borderline, paranoid personality, schizoid personality, obsessive compulsive personality, passive-aggressive personality and avoidant personality beliefs predicted smart phone addiction at significant level (R = 0.38, R2 = 0.15, p < 0.001). The mentioned variables explain 15% of the variance. An examination of the t-test shows that dependent personality (t = 5.585, p < 0.001), passive-aggressive personality (t = -4.485, p < .001) and paranoid personality (t = 2.901, p < .01) belief among the mentioned variables are a significant predictor of smart phone addiction. Discussion The obtained results show that dependent, passive-aggressive and paranoid personality beliefs are a significant predictor of smart phone addiction. Research findings are discussed in the light of relevant literature.