College Students’ Social Goals and Psychological Adjustment: Mediation via Emotion Regulation

Abstract

University life can be stressful and students may struggle to adjust socially. The present study examined students' social achievement goals-their orientations towards their relationships with their peers-as one important factor underlying students' social and psychological adjustment in college. When investigating the direct and indirect effects of social achievement goals on psychological adjustment (i.e., life satisfaction, depression, stress, and worry), the mediating role of emotion regulation was examined. Data were collected from students attending a university in China (N= 1,242, 35% male). The widely adopted three-factor structure of social achievement goals (i.e., social development goals, social demonstration-approach goals, social demonstration-avoidance goals) was confirmed to fit the data among Chinese college students.The results showed the direct and indirect benefits of endorsing a social development goal.Augmented emotion regulation mediated the effect of social development goals. The total effects of a social demonstration-approach goal were weak, but the goal indirectly impaired students' psychological adjustment via reduced emotion regulation. Endorsing a social demonstrationavoidance goal tended to compromise psychological adjustment and the effects were mediated through reduced emotion regulation. Implications for supporting students' adjustment to college are discussed.

Social Achievement Goals in Chinese Undergraduates: Associations With Self-Esteem and Symptoms of Social Anxiety and Depression

“…Contrary to Shim et al's ( 2017 ) study, path analyses showed that the endorsement of social performance-approach goals was associated with the decrease of students' concurrent depressive symptoms. The process of trying to prove social competence and winning reputation in social situations appears to provide some protective effects on soothing concurrent depressive symptoms.…”

“…These inconsistent findings suggest further investigations of the conditions under which social performance-approach goals contribute to affective outcomes. Findings also suggest a positive association between social performance-avoid goals and the concurrent and longitudinal social anxiety and depressive symptoms, which is consistent with previous findings using undergraduate samples (Kuroda and Sakurai, 2011 ; Shim and Ryan, 2012 ; Shim et al, 2017 ), suggesting that this goal orientation increases undergraduates' social anxious behaviors and depressive symptoms. Inconsistent with these studies, no significant associations have been found between social performance-approach goals and the concurrent social anxiety symptoms and between social mastery goals and the concurrent social anxiety and depression symptoms.…”

“…The study also explored whether the relationships between social achievement goals and the concurrent and longitudinal social anxiety and depression symptoms were mediated by self-esteem and whether the chain effects of self-esteem and the initial levels of social anxiety and depression symptoms existed between the links from social achievement goals to the subsequent psychopathology symptoms. As presented in previous studies (Shim and Ryan, 2012 ; Shim et al, 2012 , 2017 ; Hiller et al, 2017 ; Gao et al, 2022 ), meaningful associations were found between social achievement goals, self-esteem, and concurrent and longitudinal social anxiety and depression symptoms, which provided insight into potential risk factors and resources for undergraduates' affective wellbeing. In particular, self-esteem was found to mediate the majority of associations between social achievement goals and the concurrent and longitudinal social anxiety and depression symptoms.…”

The Relationships of SNS Use, Social Achievement Goals, and Life Satisfaction: A Study of Korean College Students

“…These findings are consistent with previous research that has found positive correlations between active SNS use and social development goals among college students in the United States (Brinkman et al, 2020). Also, our finding is aligned with the existing notion that endorsing social development goals is positively associated with life satisfaction among undergraduate students in China (Shim et al, 2017).…”

A Review of Spiritual Development and Transformation among College Students from Jesuit Higher Education

“…It is important that we understand the developmental challenges and goals of college-aged students in order to be strategic and intentional about efforts to support and nurture their spiritual development during this important time of life. Much has been written and discussed about college student age cognitive development (e.g., Lapsley and Woodbury 2016), social-emotional development (e.g., Shim et al 2017), spiritual development (e.g., Fowler 1981Hall et al 2016), and career development (e.g., Hughes and Gibbons 2016), and thus will not be repeated here. Rather, a focus on the four I's will be presented in this paper.…”