Effect of loneliness on online deviant behavior of students in a police college： a moderated mediation model / 四川精神卫生

ABSTRACT

ObjectiveTo explore the relationship among loneliness， Internet addiction and online deviant behavior of students in police colleges， and to discuss the related mechanism. MethodsIn March 2020， 766 students from a police college in Sichuan were selected by cluster sampling method， and assessed using University of California at Los Angeles-Loneliness Scale （UCLA-LS）， Diagnostic Scale for Internet Addiction Disorder （DSFIAD） and College Students' Online Deviant Behavior Questionnaire， then SPSS 20.0 software was used for statistical， and Mplus 8.0 software was used to test the mediating and moderating effects. Results①The Online Deviant Behavior Questionnaire score of male students in police college was higher than that of female students （t=7.560， P<0.01）. ②UCLA-LS score was positively correlated with DSFIAD score （r=0.406， P<0.01）， and Online Deviant Behavior Questionnaire score was positively correlated with UCLA-LS and DSFIAD scores （r=0.279， 0.592， P<0.01）. ③Loneliness could positively predict online deviant behavior （β=0.279， t=9.041， P<0.01）. ④Internet addiction played a full mediating role between loneliness and online deviant behavior， with a mediating effect size of 0.233 （95% CI： 0.190~0.279， P<0.01）， accounting for 83.51% of the total effect. ⑤Gender played a regulatory role in the second half （Internet addiction → online deviant behavior） of the intermediary path of "loneliness → Internet addiction → online deviant behavior" （β=-0.192， t=-4.461， P<0.01）. ConclusionThe loneliness of police college students cause a direct impact on the online deviant behavior， and also pose an indirect impact on online deviant behavior through Internet addiction. Furthermore， loneliness has a moderated mediation effect on online deviant behavior， and is only significant in the male students.