The Moderating Role of Religious Well-being and Self-differentiation in the Relationship between Boredom and Addiction Tendency among Male High School Students of Nourabad

Due to the increasing rate of addiction and its destructive consequences, recognizing the factors that contribute to addiction tendency among adolescents can be a useful step toward prevention of addiction. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the moderating role of religious well-being and self-differentiation in the relationship between boredom and addiction tendency.

The research design was descriptive – correlational. The statistical population was high school male students in Nourabad at the academic year 1397-1398 that a total of 360 students were selected by cluster sampling. Data were collected using Multi-dimensional Religious Well-being Inventory, Multidimensional Scale of Boredom, Differentiation of Self Inventory-Revised, and Addiction Proneness Scale. Then, collected data were analyzed using Pearson correlation and hierarchical linear regression.

The results showed a positive and significant relationship between boredom and addiction tendency (r= 0.44, p<0.01), a negative and significant relationship between religious well-being and addiction tendency (r= - 0.29, p<0.01) and between self-differentiation and addiction tendency (r= - 0.38, p<0.01). Also, based on hierarchical regression’ results the moderating role of religious well-being (β= 0.16, p<0.01) and self-differentiation (β= 0.25, p<0.01) in the relationship between boredom and addiction tendency was confirmed.

The present provided evidence for the moderating role of religious well-being and self-differentiation in the relationship between boredom and addiction proneness. Therefore; developing religious well-being and training self-differentiation among adolescents could be a good way to protect them in the face of boredom and addiction tendency.