Exploring the structure of college students' adaptability by using cross‐lagged path analysis: The role of emotional adaptability

Abstract

Adaptability is an important psychological trait for college students. However, the components of adaptability contained significant inconsistencies in previous studies. On the one hand, there were discrepancies among the adaptability dimensions. On the other hand, significant inconsistencies were found in the connections among different aspects of adaptability. Therefore, the current research aimed to investigate the latent relationship among various components of adaptability. To achieve this, 565 volunteers were recruited to complete a 5‐min cross‐sectional survey. Subsequently, 402 participants were recruited to complete an 8‐min longitudinal survey. The current study comprised two sub‐studies: Study 1 utilized a structural equation model to examine the relationship between various dimensions of adaptability in a cross‐sectional dataset, while Study 2 employed the cross‐lagged panel model to validate the latent relationship between emotional adaptability and other types of adaptability using a longitudinal dataset. Results from the cross‐sectional study indicated significant associations between emotional adaptability and other types of adaptability, with coefficients ranging from .231 to .588. The longitudinal study revealed that emotional adaptability at Time 2 and 3 could be predicted by learning adaptability, professional adaptability, and economic adaptability at Time 1 and 2. Consequently, the research concluded that individuals' emotional maladjustment could be predicted by maladaptive difficulties in learning, professional settings, homesickness, interpersonal relationships, and economics.