Attachment Styles, Facebook Addiction, Dissociation and Alexithymia in University Students; A Mediational Model

Abstract

Background: Attachment theories of Bowlby (1969); and Ainsworth (1979) are broadly applied approaches for comprehending emotional attachment and dissociation, as well as alexithymia in people. These frameworks have also been used multiple times to explain social media addiction. However, aside from theoretical suggestions and recommendations, there was a lack of empirical studies on aforementioned subject. Therefore, the purpose of the current investigation was to examine the mediating role of alexithymia and dissociation in the relationship between attachment styles and Facebook addiction in university students of Pakistan. Furthermore, the study aimed to evaluate the association between attachments styles, alexithymia, dissociation and Facebook addiction.

Methods: Purposive sampling technique was used bases on cross-sectional study design. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20, Facebook Addiction Scale, Dissociative Experience Scale, and The Revised Adult Attachment Scale were applied using a survey method to a sample of 300 university students who used Facebook (Male, n= 162, female, n=148) with age range between 18 to 25 (M=22.43, SD=1.04) years from different universities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan.

Results: The study findings revealed that secure attachment style was negatively related to alexithymia and Facebook addiction but it was positively associated with dissociation in university students. Furthermore, intimacy attachment style was negatively related to alexithymia but was positively associated with Facebook addiction and dissociation in university students. However, alexithymia was observed to be positively associated with dissociation in university students. Additionally, the results demonstrated that both alexithymia and dissociation partially mediated the relationship between secure attachment style and facebook addiction in university students. Mediation analysis suggested that secure attachment style was associated with higher level of Facebook addiction as dissociation and alexithymia enhanced the Facebook addiction in university students.

Conclusions: This study’s results findings recommended that secure attachment style is negatively related to Facebook addiction and influence dissociation and alexithymia in the sample of university students.