The relationship between nomophobia and latent classes of personality

Abstract

The phenomenon of nomophobia, defined as the anxiety experienced when a person is without their mobile phone or is unable to use it, has been identified as having serious negative effects on individuals, particularly students. Previous research has explored the relationship between personality traits and nomophobia, but the findings have been inconclusive. The main objective of this study was to classify personality types through latent class analysis and explore the relationship between these personality types and nomophobia. The Chinese version of the Nomophobia Scale and the Chinese brief version of the Big Five Personality Inventory were used in this study to survey 1906 Chinese college students. The results indicated that (1) a four‐class model provided the best fit and categorized the personality traits as the overcontrolled class, resilient class, moderate class, and vulnerable class; (2) significant differences were observed between the four personality types and nomophobia, with overcontrolled and resilient personality types consistently scoring significantly lower than moderate and vulnerable personality types. Our finding highlights the key feature of the study.