Investigating the Role of Social Anhedonia in Predicting Internet Addiction with the Moderating Role of Extraversion and Introversion Personality Traits in Students

This research was conducted to investigate the role of social anhedonia in predicting internet addiction with the moderating role of personality traits of extraversion and introversion in students. The present research method was descriptive correlational. The statistical population of the study was Shiraz University students in the academic year 2021-2022, from whom 340 people were selected by the available sampling method. The research questionnaires included Yang’s Internet Addiction Test (IAT, 1998), the Anticipatory and Consummatory Interpersonal Pleasure Scale  (ACIPS, 2011), and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ, 1985). The relationships between variables were tested by linear regression analysis and the research model was tested by structural equation modeling technique. The results showed that social anhedonia could explain 19% of the variance of internet addiction in students. The results of structural equation modeling also showed that extraversion and introversion personality traits had a moderating role in the relationship between social anhedonia and internet addiction (p<0.01). Finally, these results showed that social anhedonia can predict internet addiction in students, and extraversion and introversion personality traits play a moderating role in the relationship between these two variables.