Behavioral Systems and Difficulty with Emotional Regulation Predict Adolescents’ Addiction Potential

Abstract

Behavioral systems and emotional regulation are key components of adolescents’ emotional development. However, little is known about their role in addiction potential. This research was conducted to evaluate the role of behavioral inhibition systems (BIS), behavioral activation systems (BAS) and difficulty with emotional regulation (DER) in adolescents’ addiction potential. The present work is applied correlative research. The 1,900 participants included male adolescents from high schools in the north, south, east, and west of Tehran were the society of this research. The sample was randomly selected by using Morgan’s table for as many as 320 students. The entry criteria were gender, age, grade of education, and non-drug abuse. The research measures were behavioral activation and inhibition systems scales, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, as well as the Addiction Prone Personality scale. The results showed the correlations among BIS, BAS, and DER were positively significant (p < .05). The correlation between BIS and addiction potential was significantly negative (p < .05). Finally, BAS, BIS, and DER, respectively, predicted 57%, 20%, and 22% of the addiction potential?s variance. According to the findings, BAS is the best predictor of the addiction potential. It seems that reward responding and seeking pleasure, which were behavioral activation systems subscales, and DER most contributed to predicting addiction potential.

Keywords:

• addiction potential
• behavioral activation and inhibition systems
• difficulty with emotional regulation

Author note

The authors declare that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest. The second author takes full responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analyses.

Acknowledgment

The authors thank the participating high schools that assisted in interpretation of the results.