Role of Experiential Avoidance, Emotional Dysregulation and Sensation Seeking in Nomophobia among Young Adults

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Page: 344-349

Nitasha Khehra and Anubha Sharma (Department of Psychology, Mehr Chand Mahajan, DAV College for Women, Sector 36-A, Chandigarh)

Nomophobia is a proliferating global concern and given its escalating prevalence rate, it becomes crucial to understand its severity, cognitive and affective correlates among youth. The aim of the study was to examine gender differences in nomophobia and to explore its relationship with experiential avoidance, emotional dysregulation and sensation seeking among young adults. The sample comprised of 104 young adults in the age group 18 to 25 years. Nomophobia Questionnaire (Yildirim & Correia, 2015); was used to measure the severity of nomophobia/screen fixation. Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (Bond et al., 2011); Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz & Roemer, 2004); and Sensation Seeking Scale (Zukerman et al., 1964) were used to assess the psychological correlates of nomophobia. The findings revealed that 20.19% of young adults were categorized in the ‘severe nomophobia’ level. Interestingly, there was no significant gender difference in the severity of nomophobia and sensation seeking. However, females scored higher on experiential avoidance and limited access to emotional regulation strategies while males had higher scores on the lack of emotional awareness. Nomophobia was significantly and positively related with experiential avoidance, deficits in engaging in goal-directed behaviour, nonacceptance of emotional responses, lack of impulse control, lack of emotional clarity and limited access to emotional regulation strategies. The recognition of these psychological correlates is imperative for formulating efficacious intervention strategies and develop healthy behavioural patterns among Indian youth.