Childhood Trauma and Internet Addiction Among Chinese College Students With DSM-5-Based Self-Reported Tobacco Dependence: The Serial Mediating Roles of Self-Control and Aggression
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66581/18c6dr62Keywords:
childhood trauma, self-control, aggression, Internet addiction, tobacco dependence, Chinese college studentsAbstract
Background: Internet addiction is frequently examined among university students, but less is known about how early adverse experiences are associated with problematic Internet use in students who already show elevated tobacco-use symptoms. Drawing on the Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) framework and self-regulation perspectives, this study tested whether self-control and aggression serially mediated the association between childhood trauma and Internet addiction among Chinese college students who met a DSM-5-based self-report screening threshold for tobacco dependence symptoms. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted with 663 Chinese college students who reported DSM-5-based tobacco-use symptoms at a score of 4 or above. Participants completed measures of childhood trauma, self-control, aggression, Internet addiction, and demographic characteristics. Pearson correlations were used to examine zero-order associations. A serial mediation model was estimated using PROCESS Model 6 with 5,000 bootstrap samples, controlling for gender and age. Results: Childhood trauma was positively correlated with Internet addiction (r = .196, p < .01) and aggression (r = .290, p < .01), and negatively correlated with self-control (r = -.138, p < .01). Self-control was strongly and negatively correlated with both aggression (r = -.557, p < .01) and Internet addiction (r = -.511, p < .01). The mediation model showed that childhood trauma negatively predicted self-control (B = -0.083, p < .001), self-control negatively predicted aggression (B = -0.744, p < .001), and aggression positively predicted Internet addiction (B = 0.131, p = .001). The direct effect of childhood trauma on Internet addiction remained significant (B = 0.080, p = .009). Bootstrap analyses indicated significant indirect effects through self-control alone, aggression alone, and the serial pathway through self-control and aggression. Conclusions: Among Chinese college students with elevated DSM-5-based tobacco-use symptoms, childhood trauma was associated with Internet addiction partly through impaired self-control and heightened aggression. Self-regulatory deficits appeared to be the dominant mechanism, whereas aggression represented a smaller but significant externalizing pathway. Because the design was cross-sectional and based on self-report measures, causal interpretation is not warranted.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing.
American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). American Psychiatric Association Publishing.
Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2002). Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27-51. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135231
Bernstein, D. P., Stein, J. A., Newcomb, M. D., Walker, E., Pogge, D., Ahluvalia, T., Stokes, J., Handelsman, L., Medrano, M., Desmond, D., & Zule, W. (2003). Development and validation of a brief screening version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Child Abuse & Neglect, 27(2), 169-190. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0145-2134(02)00541-0
Brand, M., Wegmann, E., Stark, R., Müller, A., Wölfling, K., Robbins, T. W., & Potenza, M. N. (2019). The Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model for addictive behaviors: Update, generalization to addictive behaviors beyond Internet-use disorders, and specification of the process character of addictive behaviors. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 104, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.06.032
Buss, A. H., & Perry, M. (1992). The Aggression Questionnaire. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(3), 452-459. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.63.3.452
Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The adverse childhood experiences study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245-258. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(98)00017-8
Hasin, D. S., O’Brien, C. P., Auriacombe, M., Borges, G., Bucholz, K., Budney, A., Compton, W. M., Crowley, T., Ling, W., Petry, N. M., Schuckit, M., & Grant, B. F. (2013). DSM-5 criteria for substance use disorders: Recommendations and rationale. American Journal of Psychiatry, 170(8), 834-851. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2013.12060782
Hayes, A. F. (2022). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
He, J., Zhong, X., Gao, Y., Xiong, G., & Yao, S. (2019). Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) among undergraduates and depressive patients. Child Abuse & Neglect, 91, 102-108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.03.009
Li, S., Ren, P., Chiu, M. M., Wang, C., & Lei, H. (2021). The relationship between self-control and Internet addiction among students: A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, Article 735755. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.735755
Lv, L., Takami, K., Dong, D., Wong, L., & Wang, X. (2013). Development of the Chinese college students’ version of Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire. Chinese Mental Health Journal, 27(5), 378-383.
Tan, S., & Guo, Y. (2008). Revision of Self-Control Scale for Chinese college students. Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, 16(5), 468-470. https://doi.org/10.16128/j.cnki.1005-3611.2008.05.022
Tangney, J. P., Baumeister, R. F., & Boone, A. L. (2004). High self-control predicts good adjustment, less pathology, better grades, and interpersonal success. Journal of Personality, 72(2), 271-324. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00263.x
Wang, X., Li, D., & Li, S. (2023). Childhood trauma and problematic Internet use: A meta-analysis based on students in mainland China. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, Article 1115129. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1115129
Wei, Z., Che Hassan, N., Hassan, S. A., Ismail, N., Gu, X., & Dong, J. (2025). Psychometric validation of Young’s Internet Addiction Test among Chinese undergraduate students. PLOS ONE, 20(4), Article e0320641. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0320641
Young, K. S. (1998). Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 1(3), 237-244. https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.1998.1.237
Zhao, X., Zhang, Y., Li, L., Zhou, Y., Li, H., & Yang, S. (2005). Reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Chinese Journal of Clinical Rehabilitation, 9(20), 105-107.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Bingna Yan (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
1.Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0). This allows others to share the work (copy and redistribute) and adapt the work (remix, transform, and build upon) for any purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited.
2.Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3.Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
