Family and Religious Influences on Restrictive Parental Mediation and Video Game Addiction

• In Event: Cutting Edge Research on Parental Mediation of their Children's Media Use

Abstract

Research on parental mediation has focused on psychological and developmental variables, but has neglected the broader ecology in which the family is situated. Drawing on family systems theory, the current study hypothesizes that systems within the family (i.e., sibling spacing and hostile sibling relationships) and systems outside of the family (i.e, religion) operate to produce conditions that lead to restrictive mediations practices by parents, and video game addiction in adolescents. Data was supplied by the Flourishing Families project. Families with siblings (n = 387) completed measures of religiosity, sibling relationship quality, restrictive mediation practices, video game addiction, and demographics. Structural equation modeling shows that religiosity is positively related to restrictive mediation. Furthermore, the results support the idea that as spacing between siblings narrows, their relationships grow more hostile, leading to restrictive mediation. However, restrictive mediation did not predict video game addiction. Implications of these results are discussed.

Authors

• John J. Davies, Brigham Young U

• Steven Holiday, Brigham Young University

• Kieth Evans, Brigham Young U

• Sarah M. Coyne, Brigham Young University