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The relationship between parental phubbing and bullying behavior in middle school students: the mediating role of family closeness and negative emotions

BMC Psychology volume 13, Article number: 364 (2025) Cite this article

Abstract

Purpose

This study examined the mediating role of family closeness and negative emotions in the relationship between parental phubbing and bullying behavior in middle school students.

Methods

A survey was conducted on 1281 middle school students using the Parental Phubbing Scale, Family closeness Scale, Negative Emotion Scale, and Bullying Behavior Questionnaire.

Results

(1) Parental phubbing was significantly and positively related with bullying behavior in middle school students; (2) Parental phubbing was related with bullying behavior in middle school students through the separate mediating effects of family closeness and negative emotions, as well as their sequential chain mediating effect.

Conclusions

This study revealed the mechanism of parental phubbing on bullying behavior of middle school students, which can effectively reduce bullying behavior in schools by enhancing family closeness and improving students’ emotional state, and provides empirical evidence for the development of interventions.

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Introduction

Bullying is a special type of aggressive behavior that refers to an imbalance of power between the two parties involved, in which the relatively stronger party intentionally or deliberately harms the relatively weaker or disadvantaged party repeatedly [1]. Some studies have shown that the incidence of school bullying among children and adolescents around the world ranges from 15 to 25% [2], and the incidence of school bullying in China has been 27% [3]. At the same time, there are significant urban-rural and grade-level differences in the incidence of bullying among Chinese adolescents. For example, a nationwide survey of 93,515 students in 15 provinces (cities) found that the incidence of bullying among middle school students in rural areas was significantly higher than that in urban areas [4]; Another survey of 114,290 students in 15 provinces (cities) across the country found that the incidence of campus bullying was higher in junior high school and decreased in high school [5]. Individuals who frequently inflict bullying behaviors are prone to cognitive dissonance later on, and severe cases may even lead to antisocial behaviors, disciplinary infractions, and so on [6]; bullied individuals are prone to behaviors such as anxiety, and even suicidality [7, 8]. Bullying behavior is a major social problem shared globally [9]. However, most of the existing research focuses on the psychological trauma and intervention strategies of the bullied, and pays insufficient attention to the causal mechanisms of the perpetrators of bullying behaviors (bullies). In order to reduce the occurrence of school bullying from the root cause, it is urgent to explore the behavioral drivers of bullies and their pathways. Specifically, this study focuses on bullies and aims to reveal how parental phubbing, family closeness, and negative emotions contribute to bullying behaviors through chain mediation, thus providing a theoretical basis for early identification of and intervention with bullies.

Influence of parental phubbing on bullying behavior

Family systems theory states that the family is an important environment that influences children’s development [10]. Studies have shown that family variables such as parenting styles and parental overprotection can have a significant impact on adolescents’ cyberbullying behaviors [11, 12], however, there is no empirical study that has examined the impact of family factors (parental phubbing) on school bullying behaviors that exist in reality. Parental phubbing refers to the behavior of parents who excessively look down and use their cell phones while ignoring or cold-shouldering their children during parent-child communication [13]. It is a new family risk factor that leads to adolescent problem behavior [14]. According to the individual-relational integration framework model [15], socialization processes such as parenting styles affect the individual’s cognitive and affective development such as moral reasoning, social cognitive processing, and emotional reactions, which then have an impact on bullying behavior. On the one hand, parents’ obsession with playing with their cell phones while ignoring those around them can subconsciously influence individuals to acquire such poor coping styles and reject social signals and emotional cues from their peers, which may lead to a child’s tendency to become a bully who “fights to exclude” others [16]. On the other hand, parental time spent on cell phones may reduce or replace meaningful parent-child communication, thus decreasing the quality of parent-child interactions [17], resulting in a lack of parental monitoring, and adolescents having enough time and energy to engage in bullying behaviors [18]. Based on this, the present study proposes Hypothesis 1: Parental phubbing positively predicts bullying behavior in middle school students.

Mediating effects of family closeness

Family closeness refers to the degree of emotional connection that individuals feel toward family members and is an important indicator of family climate [19]. There has been no direct research on the role of family closeness in mediating the relationship between parental phubbing and bullying behavior. However, according to the displacement hypothesis, parents who spend a lot of time on the internet and have fewer opportunities to interact with their children daily can reduce the quality of parent-child relationships [20]. And the quality of parent-child relationship is directly related to the quality of family relationship [21], and the lower the quality of parent-child relationship, the lower the family closeness will be [22]. It can be seen that parental phubbing is negatively related to family closeness. On the other hand, according to the social learning theory, children with high family closeness and parents who are good at resolving family conflicts can learn positive coping styles from them and reduce negative emotions and aggressive behaviors [23]. In a low closeness family environment, individuals lack emotional communication with their parents and are prone to feel lonely and depressed [24], at which time the individual’s strategy to deal with the problem is often to bully others [25], so that this to make psychological compensation [26], and empirical studies have also shown that the higher the family closeness, the less bullying behavior [27].

Taken together, these two points suggest that family closeness mediates the relationship between parental phubbing and bullying behavior. Specifically, parental phubbing directly reduces family closeness by decreasing parent-child interactions and weakening the quality of parent-child relationships; in turn, the decline in family closeness weakens the family’s social control over adolescent behavior, making it easier for adolescents to exhibit bullying behaviors. Thus, family closeness plays a key role in bridging the gap between parental phubbing and bullying behavior. Based on this, research Hypothesis 2: Family closeness mediates between parental phubbing and bullying behavior.

Mediating effects of negative emotions

Parental phubbing significantly increases negative emotions in middle school students. According to expectation violation theory, individuals have expectations about each other’s behavior when they socially interact with others [28]. If parents use cell phones with a high frequency of head-down behavior, they will not be able to fulfill their children’s psychological expectations of their parents, resulting in negative expectation violations [29] and they will develop negative emotions [30]. Thus, parental phubbing is positively associated with negative emotions. On the other hand, according to the general strain theory (GST), individuals may develop one or more negative emotions after experiencing a negative event, and these negative emotions motivate individuals to adopt poor coping measures (e.g., bullying) to release their emotions [31]. According to this theory, parental phubbing, as a negative pattern in the parenting process, causes adolescents to develop negative emotions and then release their emotions through bullying behaviors. Empirical studies have also shown that negative emotions are positively associated with bullying behavior [32].

In summary, the general strain theory (GST) serves as the main framework to explain the mediating process: Parental phubbing is associated with adolescents’ bullying behavior through the mediating role of negative emotions. Specifically, parental phubbing causes adolescents to feel neglected and rejected, and this emotional neglect violates their psychological expectations of parental attention (expectation violation theory), which triggers negative emotions such as anxiety and depression. These negative emotions act as an internal stressor (general strain theory), prompting adolescents to engage in maladaptive coping strategies, such as bullying, in order to release emotions and restore psychological balance. Based on this, we propose research Hypothesis 3: negative emotions mediate the relationship between parental phubbing and bullying behavior.

Chain mediation between family closeness and negative emotions in parental phubbing and bullying behaviors

Family systems theory suggests that the family is an interconnected system in which the behaviors and emotions of family members interact with each other, and the theory emphasizes the dynamic equilibrium and interaction patterns within the family, arguing that individual behaviors cannot be understood in isolation but need to be analyzed in the context of the family system [10]. Based on this theory, parental phubbing reduces interaction with adolescents, weakens the emotional connection between family members, and reduces family closeness. Reduced family closeness makes adolescents feel emotionally insecure and increases the production of negative emotions (e.g., anxiety, depression). These negative emotions further motivate adolescents to release emotions or seek attention through bullying behavior. Therefore, we propose Hypothesis 4: family closeness and negative emotions play a chain mediating role between parental phubbing and bullying behavior.

To sum up, this study explores the relationship between parental phubbing and bullying behavior and its internal mechanism of action on the basis of previous related theories and studies, as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Hypothetical model of this study

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Materials and methods

Participants

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the school, and consent was obtained from teachers and parents, and informed consent forms were signed with the students themselves. A total of 1320 valid questionnaires were collected and sorted out in the first time, and then 1281 final questionnaires were obtained in the second time by removing outliers through the Mahalanobis distance, resulting in a final valid response rate of 97.05%. The age range of the subjects was from 12 to 15 years old (mean age 13.59 ± 0.70 years old), of which 683 (53.32%) were male and 598 (46.68%) were female; 595 (46.45%) were in the first year of junior high school and 686 (53.55%) were in the second year of junior high school. The time for collecting the questionnaire is from March 5th to 15th, 2024.

Measures

Bullying behavior

The bullying behavior questionnaire developed by Olweus [33] and revised in Chinese by Zhang Wenxin was used in this study [34]. The original questionnaire consists of two subscales, the bullying questionnaire and the victimization questionnaire, in which the bullying questionnaire was used in this study, with a total of 6 items, but item 1 (factor loading of 0.481) was deleted due to low factor loading. A 5-point Likert scale was used, with 0 to 4 representing “not happened in the past few months”, “only once or twice”, and “twice or three times a month” respectively, “about once a week” and “many times a week”. Higher total mean scores indicate more severe bullying behavior. Exploratory factor analysis yielded a KMO value of 0.884 for the scale, and the Bartlett’s test of significance for sphericity was p < 0.001. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for this scale in this study was 0.911.

Parental phubbing

The Chinese version of the parental phubbing scale, revised by Ding Qian [35], was used to measure the phenomenon of parents’ preoccupation with playing cell phones without having time to care for or neglecting their children. The scale consists of 9 items, but item 1 (factor loading of 0.309) was deleted due to low factor loading. The scale was rated on a 5-point scale from 1 (never) to 5 (always), with higher mean scores indicating more severe parental phubbing behavior. Exploratory factor analysis yielded a KMO value of 0.744 for the scale, and the Bartlett’s test of significance for sphericity was p < 0.001. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for this scale in this study was 0.895.

Family closeness

The family closeness subscale of the family closeness and adaptability scale, second edition (FACES II-CV), revised by Fei Lipeng [36], was used. The subscale consists of 16 items, but item 13 (factor loading of 0.210), 14 (factor loading of 0.298), 15 (factor loading of 0.097), and 16 (factor loading of 0.047) were deleted due to low factor loading values. The scale was rated on a 5-point scale from 1 (not) to 5 (always), with higher total mean scores indicating greater family closeness. Exploratory factor analysis yielded a KMO value of 0.969 for the scale, and the Bartlett’s test of significance for sphericity was p < 0.001. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for this scale in this study was 0.974.

Negative emotions

Referring to previous studies [37], depression and anxiety were used as indicators of negative mood. The ultra-simple depression and anxiety screening scale developed by Kroenke [38]. and revised by Qian Jie [39] was used, which has been shown to have good reliability and validity and is widely used in clinical and scientific research [39, 40]. A total of 4 items are scored on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 3 (almost every day), with higher total mean scores indicating more severe depression and anxiety in an individual. Exploratory factor analysis yielded a KMO value of 0.800 for the scale, and the Bartlett’s test of significance for sphericity was p < 0.001. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for this scale in this study was 0.854.

Data analysis

Data entry, descriptive statistics, and correlation analysis were performed using SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 26.0.

Results

Common method Bias

Using Harman’s single-factor test, it was found that there were 5 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, and the first factor explained 36.71% of the total variance, which was less than the critical threshold of 40%, indicating that there was no common method bias.

Convergent validity, discriminant validity, composite reliability and correlation analysis

Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on the main variables, and the standardized factor loadings for all four variables ranged from 0.663 to 0.939, with composite reliability (CR) greater than 0.7; The average variance extracted (AVE) values were all greater than 0.5, indicating good convergent validity of the measurement model. Meanwhile, the open root values of the AVE values corresponding to each variable were all greater than their correlation coefficients, indicating good discriminant validity. Through the correlation coefficient matrix, it was found that bullying behavior was positively correlated with parental phubbing and negative emotions, while it was negatively correlated with family closeness; parental phubbing was negatively correlated with family closeness, while it was positively correlated with negative emotions; and family closeness was negatively correlated with negative emotions. The details are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Describes the results of statistics, correlation analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis
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A test of the mediating role of family closeness and negative emotions in the relationship between parental phubbing and bullying behavior

The data characteristics were tested for normality using skewness and kurtosis tests (e.g., Table 2), and the absolute values of the skewness and kurtosis coefficients were greater than 1.96, indicating that the study data did not conform to a normal distribution.

Theoretically, non-normality leads to an overestimation of the chi-squared statistic, potentially leading to false rejection of the model as whole, and the underestimation of standard errors of parameter estimates, leading to inflated statistics and hence possibly erroneous attributions of significance of specific relationships in the model [41]. As a result the Bollen-Stine bootstrap p procedure was used to adjust model fit and parameter estimates to accommodate the lack of multivariate normality [42]. A path analysis based on the hypothesized model with parental phubbing as the independent variable, bullying behavior as the dependent variable, and family closeness and negative emotions as the mediator variables yielded full model fit indices of x2/df = 1.45, RMSEA = 0.02, NFI = 0.98, IFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.99, and CFI = 0.99. The R2 values of the endogenous variables of family closeness, negative emotions, and bullying behavior were 0.111, 0.121, and 0.054, respectively. see Fig. 2.

Table 2 Skewness and kurtosis
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Fig. 2
figure 2

Intermediary model diagram (Standardized coefficient) Note: *** p < 0.001

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The bias-corrected nonparametric percentile Bootstrap method was further used to test the mediating paths under the condition of 5000 samples, as shown in Table 3. The 95% confidence interval of the indirect effect of parental phubbing through family closeness on bullying behavior did not include 0, indicating that family closeness has a significant mediating role between parental phubbing and bullying behavior; the 95% confidence interval of the indirect effect of parental phubbing through negative emotion to bullying behavior did not include 0, indicating that negative emotion has a significant mediating role between parental phubbing and bullying behavior; The 95% confidence interval of the indirect effect of parental phubbing through family closeness to negative emotion to bullying behavior did not include 0, indicating that family closeness and negative emotion chain-mediated between parental phubbing and bullying behavior.

Table 3 Mediation effect analysis
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Discussion

In this study, we explored the underlying mechanism of parental phubbing on bullying behavior by constructing a chain-mediation model of parental phubbing, family closeness, negative emotions, and bullying behavior. The findings supported all hypotheses. First, parental phubbing was significantly associated with bullying behavior (Hypothesis 1), i.e., parental phubbing triggered bullying behavior. Second, parental phubbing was significantly associated with bullying behavior through the simple mediation of family closeness (Hypothesis 2), i.e., parental phubbing decreased family closeness, which in turn increased bullying behavior. Third, parental phubbing was significantly associated with bullying behavior through the simple mediating effect of negative emotions (Hypothesis 3), i.e., parental phubbing triggered adolescents’ negative emotions, which in turn prompted them to release their emotions through bullying behavior. Finally, family closeness and negative emotions played a chain mediating role between parental phubbing and bullying behavior (Hypothesis 4), i.e., parental phubbing further exacerbated adolescents’ negative emotions by decreasing family closeness, which ultimately led to bullying behavior. Theoretically, this study revealed the intrinsic mechanisms of parental phubbing on bullying behavior and enriched the research in this area. Practically, this study provided empirical research support for reducing school violence and promoting students’ healthy development from a family perspective.

The relationship between parental phubbing and bullying behavior

Previous studies on the impact of parental phubbing on adolescent adjustment have focused on cyberbullying and cyberbullied [43, 44] and smartphone addiction, among others [45, 46], with few studies focusing on the impact of parental phubbing on real-world bullying behavior. In contrast, the present study found that parental phubbing was positively associated with adolescents’ bullying behavior, i.e., the higher the degree of parental phubbing, the more serious the adolescents’ bullying behavior. This result supports Hypothesis 1 and can be explained through family systems theory [10] and the individual-relational integration framework model [15].

First, according to family systems theory, the family environment is an important microsystem that influences children’s development. Parental phubbing, as a family risk factor, undermines the supportive function of the family environment by reducing the duration and quality of parent-child interactions. This disruption may lead adolescents to feel neglected and rejected, which in turn leads to attention seeking or emotional release through bullying behavior.

Second, according to the individual-relational integration framework model, parental phubbing, as a socialization process, may influence adolescents’ bullying behavior by affecting their cognitive and emotional development. Specifically, parental phubbing reduces effective interactions with adolescents, which may lead to biases in adolescents’ moral reasoning and social cognitive processing, such as a greater tendency to resolve conflict through aggressive behavior. In addition, parental phubbing may also trigger negative emotions (e.g., anger, loneliness) in adolescents, which further motivate them to release their emotions through bullying behaviors. Thus, parental phubbing has a significant impact on adolescents’ bullying behavior through multiple mechanisms.

Mediating role of family closeness

This study found that parental phubbing affects adolescents’ bullying behavior through the mediating effect of family closeness, as shown by the fact that parental phubbing significantly and negatively predicts family closeness, and the lower the family closeness, the more serious the adolescents’ bullying behavior. This result supports Hypothesis 2 and can be explained by the displacement hypothesis and social learning theory.

First, according to the displacement hypothesis [20], parental phubbing directly weakens the quality of parent-child relationships by reducing the time and frequency of parent-child interactions. When parents used cell phones excessively, they were unable to pay attention to and respond to their adolescents’ emotional needs in a timely manner, resulting in adolescents feeling neglected and left out. This emotional neglect further reduces family closeness and weakens the emotional connection between family members.

Second, according to social learning theory [23], adolescents with high family closeness are able to learn positive coping strategies by observing the way their parents resolve conflicts, thus reducing aggressive behavior. In contrary, adolescents in low family closeness environments often lack emotional communication with their parents and were unable to learn effective emotional regulation and problem-solving skills, and thus were more inclined to cope with negative emotions through bullying behaviors.

Finally, families with low family closeness often suffer from poor communication, increased conflict, and lack of social support, dysfunctions that make it difficult for adolescents to develop positive coping styles and peer interaction patterns [47]. For example, adolescents who lack emotional support may seek attention or release emotions through bullying behavior. Thus, parental phubbing indirectly influences bullying behavior by affecting family closeness.

Mediating role of negative emotions

This study found that parental phubbing affects adolescents’ bullying behavior through the mediating role of negative emotions, as shown by the fact that parental phubbing significantly and positively predicted negative emotions, and the higher the level of negative emotions, the more severe the adolescents’ bullying behavior. This result supports Hypothesis 3 and can be explained by the expectation violation theory and general strain theory.

First, according to expectation violation theory [28], adolescents have psychological expectations of parental attention and interaction. When parents frequently use their cell phones with their heads down, this expectation is violated, causing adolescents to feel neglected and rejected, which in turn triggers negative emotions (e.g., anxiety, depression). This emotional neglect not only weakens the parent-child relationship, but also exacerbates adolescents’ psychological stress.

Second, according to the general strain theory [31], negative emotions are an internal stressor triggered by parental phubbing. In order to release emotional stress, adolescents may adopt maladaptive coping strategies (e.g., bullying behavior). For example, anxiety and depression decrease an individual’s self-control and increase the likelihood of aggressive behavior.

Finally, parental phubbing serves as a risky family environment that leads to a weakening of the adolescent’s emotional connection with his or her parents, further exacerbating negative emotions [48]. These negative emotions drive adolescents to seek attention or release emotions through bullying behavior [49]. Thus, parental phubbing indirectly contributes to bullying behavior through the mediating role in negative emotions.

Chain mediation of family closeness and negative emotions

The present study demonstrated that family closeness and negative emotions served as chain mediators between parental phubbing and bullying behavior, supporting Hypothesis 4 and can be explained by family systems theory [10].

Family systems theory emphasizes that the behaviors and emotions of family members are interrelated in the system and that individual behaviors need to be analyzed in the context to family interaction patterns. The specific mechanisms are as follows.

Parental phubbing leads to lower family closeness

According to family system theory, parental phubbing disrupts the dynamic balance of the family system. When parents use cell phones excessively, the frequency and quality of their interactions with adolescents decrease significantly, directly weakening the emotional connection between family members. This change in interaction patterns leads to a decrease in family closeness.

Decreased family closeness leads to increased negative emotions

Decreased family closeness further triggers dysfunctional family systems. Low family closeness means that adolescents are unable to obtain sufficient emotional security (e.g., neglect, rejection) from the family environment, and this emotional deficit violates adolescents’ psychological expectations of family support, which in turn triggers negative emotions such as anxiety and depression.

Negative emotions lead to bullying behavior

Family systems theory states that system imbalances prompt individuals to restore balance through external behaviors. Negative emotions act as an internal stressor that drives adolescents to release emotions or seek attention through aggressive behaviors such as bullying.

Family systems theory provides an integrative framework for this study, revealing the dynamic mechanisms by which parental phubbing influences bullying behavior through a chain of family environment (closeness) and individual emotions (negative emotions). This perspective bridges the limitations of previous studies that analyzed family or individual factors in isolation and highlights the complexity of the interaction of multiple elements within the family system.

Theoretical insight

This study integrates multiple theoretical models to reveal the underlying mechanisms by which parental phubbing is associated with adolescent bullying behavior. The core insights from the theoretical integration perspective are distilled below.

Family systems theory [10]: dynamic imbalances and systemic transmission

Family systems theory provides the central framework for this study. Parental phubbing is associated with a decrease in family closeness by disrupting the dynamic equilibrium of the family system (e.g., reducing the frequency and quality of parent-child interactions); and a low intimacy environment further weakens the emotional ties among family members, forming a chain reaction of “deterioration of the family environment→individual’s emotional dysfunction→external behavioral disorders”. This theory reveals that the influence of parental phubbing is not an isolated event, but rather a cascading transmission through the family system that triggers adolescent behavioral problems.

Individual-relational integration framework model: dual paths in the socialization process

The individual-relational integration framework model [15] complements the macro perspective of family systems theory by cutting through the socialization process and proposing that parental phubbing affects adolescents through two pathways: (1) cognitive developmental pathway: reduction of effective interactions leads to adolescents’ moral reasoning bias (e.g., tendency to aggressively resolve conflicts); and (2) emotional developmental pathway: emotional neglect triggers the accumulation of negative emotions (e.g., anger, loneliness), which prompts bullying to become an emotional release tool. The model emphasizes that parental phubbing is both a family relationship risk factor and a developmental impediment to adolescent socialization.

Synergistic explanations of the displacement hypothesis and social learning theory: mediating mechanisms of family closeness

The displacement hypothesis [20] suggests that parental phubbing reduces face-to-face emotional communication and directly weakens family closeness. The social learning theory [23] further elucidates that low family closeness makes adolescents more likely to choose bullying as a coping method due to the lack of conflict resolution strategies that adolescents learn from their parents. This perspective highlights the function of the family environment in shaping behavioral patterns.

Synergistic explanations of expectation violation and general stress theories: mediating mechanisms of emotions

Expectation violation theory [28] states that adolescents expect attention and responsiveness from their parents, and when these expectations are not met, feelings of rejection arise, which in turn trigger negative emotions. General strain theory [31] further suggests that such negative emotions can become internal stressors, depleting self-regulatory resources and increasing the likelihood of impulsive aggression. The combination of the two reveals the chain logic of “failed relationship expectations→accumulated emotional stress→uncontrolled behavior”, which provides theoretical support for the mediating role of negative emotions.

Limitations and directions for future research

There are some shortcomings in this study. First, this study used cross-sectional research data to examine the mediating role between variables, making the causal relationship between variables not well inferred, and subsequent studies could use a tracking research design to further validate the reliability of the findings. Secondly, this study focused on the relationship between factors from the family (parental phubbing) and bullying behavior, and future research could consider examining the influence mechanism of bullying behavior from a combination of external factors such as society, family, and school. Finally, this study used a questionnaire method and the subjects were self-reported, which may lead to unrealistic feedback from students about bullying behavior, and in the future, interviews, experiments, and other forms of data collection can be used.

Conclusions

This study reveals the intrinsic influence mechanism of parental phubbing on adolescents’ bullying behavior by constructing a chain-mediated model of parental phubbing, family closeness, negative emotions and bullying behavior. The study found: (1) Parental phubbing was significantly and positively related with bullying behavior in middle school students; (2) Parental phubbing was related with bullying behavior in middle school students through the separate mediating effects of family closeness and negative emotions, as well as their sequential chain mediating effect. At the theoretical level, this study integrates multidimensional perspectives such as family systems theory and the individual-relational integration framework to reveal the complex pathways through which parental phubbing affects bullying behavior, enriching research in related fields. On the practical level, the results of this study provide directions for family intervention to reduce bullying in schools and promote the healthy development of adolescents, and emphasize the importance of reducing parental phubbing and enhancing family closeness and emotional management.

Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due privacy but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the participants who contributed to the study.

Funding

This study was not funded by any grants.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Qiaoshan Middle School, Yan’an, 727399, China

    Ganggang Pang

  2. Huangling Middle School, Yan’an, 727399, China

    Caixia Wang

  3. College of Teacher Education, Tianshui Normal University, Tianshui, 741001, China

    Cheng Kang

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  1. Ganggang Pang
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  2. Caixia Wang
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Contributions

GGP conducted data collection and analysis under the supervision of CXW and completed the first draft ofthe thesis. CK has revised the frst draft and gavemany valuable suggestions. CXW did most of the critical work in the revisionprocess. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Caixia Wang or Cheng Kang.

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The design of this study followed the guidelines and regulations of the Declaration of Helsinki and has been approved by the local research Ethics Committee of Qiaoshan Middle School (QMS-20240130-001). All participants signed informed consent. For all participants under 16 years of age, written informed consent was obtained from their parents or legal guardians prior to their participation in the study.

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Pang, G., Wang, C. & Kang, C. The relationship between parental phubbing and bullying behavior in middle school students: the mediating role of family closeness and negative emotions. BMC Psychol 13, 364 (2025). https://doiorg.publicaciones.saludcastillayleon.es/10.1186/s40359-025-02671-7

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Keywords

BMC Psychology

ISSN: 2050-7283

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