Interpersonal Guilt and Problematic Online Behaviors: The Mediating Role of Emotion Dysregulation

Objective: The positive association between problematic Internet use (PIU) and emotion dysregulation (ED) is well documented. Research has also found that inter-personal guilt is positively associated with ED. Nevertheless, the influence of interper-sonal guilt on PIU has been scarcely examined. In the current study, we investigated the relationships among the three constructs, and tested if emotion dysregulation me-diates the association between interpersonal guilt and different types of PIU, namely problematic online gaming, problematic social media use, and problematic online pornography use.Method: A sample of 434 adult participants (210 males, 48.4%) aged between 18 and 69 years old completed self-reported measures on interpersonal guilt, ED, and PIU. A structural equation modeling (SEM) framework was used to test the mediation models.Results: SEM analyses showed that ED mediates the relationship between inter-personal guilt as antecedent, and problematic online gaming, problematic social media use, and problematic online pornography use as outcomes.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that emotion dysregulation deriving from expe-riences of interpersonal guilt can amplify the risk of using gaming, social media, and online pornography in a problematic way. Implications for prevention and treatment of PIU are discussed.