the relationship between aggression and video game addiction in students: the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulty and social empathy

Introduction: understanding the link between video games, aggression, and underlying emotional factors is crucial to inform educational practices and parental guidance for healthy youth development. the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between aggression and video game addiction in students with the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulty and social empathy.methods: the study employed a descriptive correlational research design. the target population encompassed all students enrolled in high schools within aran and bidgol city, iran, during the year 2023. a multistage sampling approach was employed to generate a sample of 300 participants. data collection instruments included the aggression questionnaire, game addiction scale, difficulties in emotion regulation scale, and empathy assessment scale. structural equation modeling (sem), implemented using amos software, served as the primary statistical technique for testing the hypothesized relationships between the variables.results: the findings revealed significant correlations among the study variables. aggression was correlated with video game addiction (r=0.65, p<0.001), emotion regulation difficulty (r=0.56, p<0.001), and social empathy (r=-0.67, p<0.001). the results demonstrated that emotion regulation difficulty and social empathy significantly mediated the association between aggression and video game addiction (p<0.001).conclusion: this study revealed significant correlations between aggression, video game tendency, emotion regulation difficulty, and social empathy in adolescents. furthermore, emotion regulation difficulty and social empathy emerged as significant mediating factors in the relationship between aggression and video game tendency. these findings suggest that aggression not only directly influences video game use, but also exerts its influence indirectly through emotional regulation and social cognition.