Temperament, Character and Cognitive Emotional Regulation in the Latent Profile Classification of Smartphone Addiction in University Students

ABSTRACT

The frequency of smartphone use has been increasing since COVID-19, and the problem of smartphone addiction is expected to intensify in modern society where smartphones have diverse uses. According to a recent study, cognitive emotional regulation strategies have proven to be effective in deepening or alleviating smartphone addiction. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of smartphone addiction according to various psychosocial approaches, including the cognitive emotional regulation strategy. The purpose of this study is to classify the potential profiles of smartphone addiction and to verify the trends and differences of the classified groups. A total of 333 college students with an age range of 22–25 were targeted. All subjects were asked to take the Smartphone Addition Scale Based on Behavioral Addiction Criteria (SAS-B), Temperature and Character Inventory (TCI), and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ). In order to conduct a person-centered approach, Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was used, and it was analyzed using Mplus 7. As a result, there were significant differences in the classification of potential groups for smart addiction. It was found that there is a high correlation between temperament and character in smartphone addiction and cognitive emotional regulation strategies. This study is expected to be useful as basic data for treatment and preventive approaches according to smartphone addiction in the future.