The Mediation Effect of Aggression on the Relationship Between Attachment Anxiety and Nicotine Dependence in Smoking High School Students

This study examined whether aggression mediates the relationship between attachment anxiety and nicotine dependence among smoking high school students. Participants were 113 students from specialized high schools in B City who completed the ECR-R, AQ, and FTND. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 and PROCESS Macro (Model 4) with descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlations, and bootstrapped mediation analysis. Attachment anxiety was positively correlated with aggression, and aggression was positively correlated with nicotine dependence, while the direct relationship between attachment anxiety and nicotine dependence was not significant. Aggression fully mediated this association, indicating that emotion-focused, multidimensional interventions are essential in adolescent smoking cessation programs.