Behavioral Activation and Mobile Phone Addiction in Chinese University Students: The Chain-Mediating Effects of Perceived Social Support and Negative Cognitive Emotion Regulation

Behavioral activation refers to specific behavioral responses generated by individuals when exposed to reward stimuli in order to obtain reward satisfaction, and continuous rewarding experiences may lead to addictive tendencies. To understand the relationship between behavioral activation and mobile phone addiction tendency among Chinese college students, as well as the chain mediating roles of perceived social support and negative cognitive emotion regulation, a questionnaire survey was conducted among 648 students randomly sampled from a university in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China, to investigate the relationships among behavioral activation, perceived social support, negative cognitive emotion regulation, and mobile phone addiction tendency. The results showed that: (1) behavioral activation negatively predicted mobile phone addiction tendency among Chinese college students (β = −0.11, t = −2.92, p < 0.001); (2) negative cognitive emotion regulation partially mediated the relationship between behavioral activation and mobile phone addiction tendency; and (3) perceived social support and negative cognitive emotion regulation played a chain mediating role between behavioral activation and mobile phone addiction tendency. These findings suggest that behavioral activation can negatively predict mobile phone addiction tendency through perceived social support and negative cognitive emotion regulation in Chinese college students.