The double-edged perfectionist parenting: an examination of its impact on adolescent internet gaming addiction (IGA).

BACKGROUND/

OBJECTIVE

Internet gaming addiction is a problematic behavior that can be influenced by various factors, including perfectionist parenting. Perfectionist parenting is a double-edged sword: while it can motivate children to strive for higher standards, it can also make them feel restricted, hindering the development of the desired behaviors. This study focuses on the concepts of parental perfectionist expectations and parental perfectionist criticisms, hypothesizing that they are highly correlated with perceived parental anxiety, leading to a sense of loneliness and psychological resistance in adolescents, ultimately increasing the likelihood of adolescent Internet gaming addiction.

METHODS

We collected 427 valid surveys from adolescents and employed the structural equation modeling approach to analyze the relationships among six factors: perceived parental anxiety, parental perfectionist expectations, parental perfectionist criticisms, adolescent loneliness, adolescent psychological resistance, and adolescent Internet gaming addiction.

FINDINGS: In the end, 11 out of 13 hypotheses were confirmed, with the remaining two being rejected: "parental perfectionist expectations positively predict adolescent loneliness" (H4, β = 0.100, p = 0.137), and "perceived parental anxiety positively predicts adolescent Internet gaming addiction" (H11, β = 0.009, p = 0.874).

CONCLUSIONS

The results indicate that perceived parental anxiety does significantly contribute to increased parental perfectionist expectations (β = 0.397, p < 0.001), which in turn lead to heightened parental perfectionist criticisms (β = 0.448, p < 0.001). Both perfectionist parenting styles were significantly associated with adolescent Internet gaming addiction (expectations: β = 0.134, p = 0.039; criticisms: β = 0.166, p = 0.004). Additionally, parental perfectionist expectations were shown to induce adolescent psychological resistance (β = 0.253, p < 0.001), a key predictor of Internet gaming addiction.