Association between Self-Efficacy and Learning Conformity among Chinese University Students: Differences by Gender

The Impact of Research Pressure on Depression Tendency among Chinese Doctoral Students: The Mediating Effect of Familial Financial Support

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to explore the impact of research pressure on depression tendency among Chinese doctoral students and analyze the mediating effect of familial financial support in this relationship.

METHODS

Based on the ecological systems theory, this study employs a mediating effect model and OLS regression model for empirical analysis. Through an online questionnaire, 2815 valid data from Chinese doctoral students were successfully collected.

CONCLUSION

The study finds that research pressure has a significant positive impact on depression tendency among doctoral students (t = 18.347, p < 0.01). Married doctoral students show relatively lower depression tendency, indicating a negative impact of marital status on depression tendency (t = 12.579, p < 0.01). In terms of gender, female doctoral students are more prone to depression compared to their male counterparts (t = -2.921, p < 0.01). Additionally, as the doctoral year progresses, depression tendency also tends to increase (t = 3.690, p < 0.01). Importantly, familial financial support is proven to be a significant mediator between research pressure and depression tendency, explaining 32.116% of the relationship.

SUGGESTION

This study not only provides a multi-dimensional perspective for understanding the mental health issues of doctoral students but also offers a scientific basis for universities and related educational departments to formulate more precise mental health intervention strategies.

The Impact of Family Socioeconomic Status (SES) on Adolescents' Learning Conformity: The Mediating Effect of Self-Esteem

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between family socioeconomic status (SES) and adolescents' learning conformity and self-esteem among a sample of 15-18 year-old high school students.

METHODS

A survey was conducted on 339 adolescents using measures of family SES, self-esteem, and learning conformity. An intermediary effect model was constructed to examine the mediating mechanism of self-esteem in the impact of family SES on adolescents' learning conformity.

RESULTS

In our study, we observed that male adolescents were more likely to come from families with higher socioeconomic status (SES) and exhibited relatively higher levels of self-esteem compared to female adolescents. However, this finding should be regarded as an observational outcome specific to our study sample and does not directly indicate a causal relationship between gender and family SES or self-esteem. Adolescents from rural areas were more likely to exhibit tendencies towards learning abidance and compliance. Family SES positively predicted self-esteem. The intermediary model indicated that family SES significantly positively influenced learning abidance and compliance, with self-esteem partially mediating the effects at 33.49% and 33.33%, respectively. Family SES negatively affected learning obedience, with self-esteem partially mediating the effect at 39.77%.

CONCLUSION

Among the 15-18 year-old high school student population, family SES not only directly affects learning abidance, compliance, and obedience but also generates an indirect mediating effect through self-esteem.

Psychological capital research in HEIs: Bibliometric analysis of current and future trends

This study presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the literature on psychological capital (PsyCap) within higher education institutions (HEIs). Its main objective is to offer an encompassing perspective on this field's current state and potential developments. To achieve this, the study examines present research trends and predicts future directions using a bibliometric approach. A total of 412 journal articles were gathered from the Web of Science database. The analysis identifies influential publications, outlines the knowledge structure, and forecasts future trends through bibliographic coupling and co-word analyses. The bibliographic coupling revealed five distinct clusters, while the co-word analysis identified four clusters. Despite the growing significance of PsyCap research in HEIs, there remains a need for greater academic efforts to comprehend the research landscape fully. This paper provides valuable insights into the expanding area of PsyCap research within HEIs. In conclusion, the study sheds light on the extensive research conducted on PsyCap in the context of HEIs and offers insights into its potential for further growth.

Physical activity, problematic smartphone use, and burnout among Chinese college students

The aim of this study was to investigate the association between physical activity (PA), problematic smartphone use (PSU), and burnout, as well as to identify whether there is a mediating role for PSU. We recruited 823 college students (Mage = 18.55, SD = 0.83) from Wuhan, China, in December 2022, including 499 males and 324 females. Demographic information, the International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Short Form (IPAQ-SF), the Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV), and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI-SS) were used for assessments. Pearson correlation analysis showed that PA was significantly associated with PSU (r = -0.151, p < 0.001), PSU was significantly associated with burnout (r = 0.421, p < 0.001), and the association between PA and burnout was not statistically significant (r = -0.046, p > 0.05). The results of the mediation model test showed that PA could not predict burnout directly; it instead predicted burnout entirely indirectly through PSU. Furthermore, PSU mediated the predictive effect of PA on exhaustion and cynicism. In conclusion, there is no direct connection between PA levels and burnout. PA indirectly affects burnout through PSU, but does not fully apply to the three different dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy.

Trajectories of college students' general self-efficacy, the related predictors, and depression: A piecewise growth mixture modeling approach

General self-efficacy plays a critical role in the development of college students, and mastering the development of students' general self-efficacy is helpful to explain students' behavior and psychological performance. Based on the data from the same cohort of college students for four consecutive years, this study used the piecewise growth mixture model to identify the developmental trajectories of general self-efficacy, built a multinomial logistic regression model to analyze the related predictors on different trajectories, and further compared the differences in depression symptoms in general self-efficacy trajectories. Three trajectories of college students' general self-efficacy were identified: stable-rising (8.7%), stable-decreasing (2.4%), and moderate and stable (88.9%). With the moderate and stable class as the reference, gender and extraversion are the predictors of students in the stable-increasing class; gender, extraversion, mother's education level, and university tier significantly predict students who fall into the stable-decreasing class. With the stable-increasing class as the reference, gender also has a significant predictive effect on students who belong to the stable-decreasing class. However, age, ethnicity, siblings, hometown location, father's education level, BMI, sleep, and major were not related predictors. Furthermore, mean differences in depression between latent classes of general self-efficacy trajectories were significant, and the depression scores of the stable-decreasing class were beyond the normal range in the third and fourth years. To promote college students' mental health, we suggest that colleges provide more specific psychological interventions to students based on the classification.

Scientific Research Conformity of University Teachers: Role of Incentives and Internal Attribution

Background: Conformity is a process by which a person changes his original idea and attitude in response to group pressure and chooses to be consistent with the majority. The study was undertaken to explore university teachers’ scientific research conformity (SRC), the psychological process of information processing and the types of internal attribution in SRC, and the relationship between SRC incentives and types of internal attribution. Method: A survey of 349 teachers from seven universities was conducted. We employed the mixed-method approach; data was collected through in-depth interviews and were analyzed using AMOS. Results: In-depth interviews revealed that the basic principle of human organizational behavior is conformity with incentive, and conformity is a motivational behavior produced through psychological processing of social information. Factor analysis results revealed that teachers’ SRC is characterized by abidance, compliance, and obedience. The internal incentives mainly affect abidance, and have a significant impact on obedience and compliance; the environmental incentives mainly affect abidance, and have a significant impact on obedience. Family and social relationship incentives mainly affect compliance, but social relationship incentives also have a significant impact on obedience. Additionally, policy incentives have a highly significant impact on obedience. Conclusions: This study provides first-hand empirical data for studies pertaining to research motivation and SRC behavior of Chinese university teachers. It also provides a theoretical basis for subsequent research on conformity behavior.

The Mediation Role of Self-Control in the Association of Self-Efficacy and Physical Activity in College Students

Global COVID-19 lockdown measures have led to an apparent decrease in physical activity. This study aimed to explore the explanatory function of self-control's mediating role between self-efficacy and physical activity among college students. The analysis used the data of 1627 university students (aged 19.41 ± 0.66, range 17-28, 40.5% males) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Self-efficacy, self-control, and physical activity were tested, respectively, by the general self-efficacy scale, the new brief self-control scale, and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) scale, which were analyzed by SPSS software. Correlation analysis showed that self-efficacy, self-control, and physical activity were related in pairs. Comparing the two dimensions of self-control, we found that self-discipline mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and PA, and impulse control did not mediate the relationship. Regarding the gender difference according to multi-group analysis, findings showed that females need higher self-discipline from the path of self-efficacy to physical activity improvement than males.