Adult attachment and fear of missing out in Chinese college students: the parallel mediating roles of self-differentiation and interpersonal sensitivity

Fear of missing out has become an important concern for college students’ emotional adjustment and social well-being. Although previous research has linked adult attachment to various emotional and interpersonal outcomes, the psychological mechanisms underlying the association between adult attachment and fear of missing out remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on attachment theory, this study examined whether self-differentiation and interpersonal sensitivity function as parallel mediating pathways linking attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance to fear of missing out. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1333 Chinese college students using validated self-report measures of adult attachment, self-differentiation, interpersonal sensitivity, and fear of missing out. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed mediation model. The results showed that both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance were positively associated with fear of missing out. These associations were partially mediated by lower self-differentiation and higher interpersonal sensitivity. Specifically, the indirect effects of attachment anxiety on fear of missing out through self-differentiation and interpersonal sensitivity were 0.071 and 0.236, respectively, whereas the corresponding indirect effects of attachment avoidance were 0.041 and 0.144. The total indirect effects were 0.307 for attachment anxiety and 0.185 for attachment avoidance. Contrast analyses further indicated that the interpersonal sensitivity-mediated pathway was significantly stronger than the self-differentiation-mediated pathway for both attachment dimensions. In addition, attachment anxiety showed significantly stronger indirect associations with fear of missing out than attachment avoidance through both mediators. These findings identify complementary but distinguishable psychological pathways linking insecure attachment to fear of missing out and suggest that self-differentiation and interpersonal sensitivity may represent potentially useful targets for university-based psychological support programs.