Effects of Difficulty in Handling Emotions and Social Interactions on Nomophobia: Examining the Mediating Role of Feelings of Loneliness
Abstract This study was addressed to assess nomophobia in an Italian sample (N = 456, 53.1% men, Mage = 31.8, SD = 11.1), also providing a deeper knowledge about how it is distributed across demographics, as well as identifying its best predictors. The main goal was to investigate the direct and indirect effects of difficulty in emotion regulation and social interaction anxiety on nomophobia through loneliness. Our findings indicated that loneliness explained the effect of the expressive suppression strategy (fully) and social interaction anxiety (partially) on nomophobia, whereas it was not a significant mediator when the cognitive reappraisal strategy was taken into account. Our study sug…