The relationship between proactive personality and college students’ short-form video addiction: A chain mediation model of resilience and self-control

Background With the explosive development of the short-form video (SFV) industry in recent years, the issue of SFV addiction among young people has attracted increasing attention from scholarship. Researchers have found that proactive personality is negatively associated with behavioral addiction. Additionally, SFV Apps tend to place users in a “filter bubble” to passively consume the pushed video content. Proactiveness could be an effective trait to resist the excessive use of SFVs. Thus, proactive personality may be a negative predictor of SFV addiction. Objective The present study aims at investigating the relationship between proactive personality and SFV addiction among college students, and the psychological mechanism underlying the relationship, i.e., the mediating roles of resilience and self-control. Methods Convenience sampling was adopted to conduct an online questionnaire survey among college students from 8 universities in 5 provinces of China. Proactive personality scale (PPS), brief resilience scale (BRS), Brief self-control scale (BSCS), and SFV addiction scale were applied in designing the questionnaire. A total of 560 valid questionnaires were obtained with ages ranging from 17 to 22 (19.32±1.14), among whom 40.18% were males and 59.28% females. Results SFV addiction among college students was negatively correlated with proactive personality, resilience, and self-control. Proactive personality has significant direct effect on SFV addiction, and the other two variables play partial mediating roles including chain mediation between proactive personality and SFV addiction. The ratio of SFV addicts amounted to 23.57%, which was slightly higher compared to previous research findings. Conclusion Proactive personality negatively predicts SFV addiction among college students and the mediators of resilience and self-control play partially mediating roles between proactive personality and SFV addiction.