The relation between anxious and depressive individuals and their frequency to hyperfocus on screens explained by negative metacognitive beliefs

Diplôme Master The relation between anxious and depressive individuals and their frequency to hyperfocus on screens explained by negative metacognitive beliefs eng 2022 author Welikele Don Sinidhu 824382 director Debbané Martin 543333 Section de psychologie (PSICO) <p>Hyperfocus can be defined as a state of intense selective attention on an engaging activity. During this cognitive state, time is distorted by the decreased perception of unrelated stimuli in the environment (Ashinoff & Abu-Akel, 2021). This state of mind is more known in the domain of sports but not necessarily with screen devices. With the increase of the latter, many studies have observed that anxious and depressive individuals have shown to have an increase in their screentime (Hamer, Stamatakis, & Mishra, 2010; Lee Smith & al., 2020). According to research, negative metacognitive beliefs seem to play an important role in anxiety and depressive symptoms (Wells, 2009) and they seem to have an influence on the access to hyperfocus (Love, Kannis-Dymand, & Lovell, 2019). Knowing this, we assumed that there was an increase of hyperfocus on screens with anxious and depressive people. And based on the mediation theory of Baron and Kenny (1986), we were able to hypothesize that the relation between having anxiety and depressive symptoms and hyperfocus screentime would be mediated by negative metacognitive beliefs. Through a course credit at the University of Geneva and our acquaintances, our sample for this study included 101 adults aged 20 to 49 years old (M = 27,60, SD = 7,12). The results corroborated with our hypothesis. A higher score of anxiety and depressive symptoms was related to a higher frequency of hyperfocus on screens. We could confirm then through mediation analysis that negative metacognitive beliefs played a role of a complete mediator in the relationship between the score of anxiety and depressive symptoms and the frequency of hyperfocus on screens. The findings indicate that the relation between the score of anxiety and depression and the frequency of hyperfocus on screens exist through the presence of negative metacognitive beliefs.</p> Dewey 150 Maitrise universitaire en psychologie 108 Section de psychologie 71 false dc6bc52c-ef27-4b98-9ee6-8a2ad2bb7364 Master thesis Private WEKILELE_Don_Sinidhu_MA_aout_2022.pdf 886908 application/pdf 2ab880c3c18a09f87f824c1a03bf9fdb2b0ed764ac1b4d7f23fbfeb9b962966c closedAccess Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l'éducation / Section de psychologie

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The relation between anxious and depressive individuals and their frequency to hyperfocus on screens explained by negative metacognitive beliefs				2022	45	0

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Welikele, Don Sinidhu