Indirect effects of parental and peer attachment on Internet Gaming Disorder among adolescents: The role of negative automatic thoughts

The association between the quality of attachment to parents and peers and Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) in adolescents shows mixed findings. Moreover, there is little research on the mechanism underlying this relationship. This study aims to investigate the indirect path between attachment to mother, father, and peers and IGD symptomatology via negative automatic thoughts. Exploratory, we tested the role of specific thought content in this relationship. A convenient sample of 697 adolescents (mean age 14,98 years old) were recruited between June and October 2019 from five Romanian high schools. Path analyses performed in Mplus reveal that attachment to both parents and peers is indirectly associated with IGD through adolescents' negative automatic thoughts. In contrast, the only non-significant indirect effects found between attachment figures and IGD were via hostility (for the father) and physical threat and failure (for peers). As results are in line with previous literature on adolescent psychopathology, prevention and intervention studies should target adolescents` cognitive vulnerabilities and also promote healthy relationships with parents and peers. Further discussions and implications are presented in the paper. Nevertheless, studies should longitudinally evaluate the causality of this linkage. • Attachment quality to mothers, fathers, and peers negatively and significantly predicted adolescents' negative automatic thoughts. • Secure attachment to parents and peers predicted lower negative automatic thoughts, which in turn decreased the chances of IGD symptomatology. • The variance in IGD symptomatology explained by the quality of each individual attachment relationship and negative automatic thoughts is 12.9%. • The only nonsignificant indirect effect found for parents was between father attachment and IGD via hostile thoughts. • The only nonsignificant indirect effects found between peer attachment and IGD were via physical threat and failure thoughts.