Parental Emotional Neglect and Internet Addiction Among Left-Behind Children: The Parallel Mediating Roles of Deviant Peer Affiliation and Experiential Avoidance

Purpose

Adopting a socio-ecological perspective,This study examined the associations between parental emotional neglect and internet addiction among Chinese left-behind children (LBCs) within an approach/avoidance motivation framework. Specifically, it tested whether deviant peer affiliation (behavioral approach pathway) and experiential avoidance (emotional avoidance pathway) would parallelly mediate this association, and whether growth mindset would moderate the direct and indirect pathways.