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Research Article | Open Access

Interpersonal Competence and Meaning in Life for University Students: A multi-group Model

Psychological health education center of Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Department of psychology in Nanjing University, Nanjing 210008, China
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Abstract

Background:

With the COVID-19 pandemic in the first half of 2020, most colleges in China delayed in-person instruction. During this period, interpersonal isolation (social isolation) emerged, which created a natural "laboratory" for examining students’ attitudes and feelings toward social interaction. This study aimed to analyze the mediating effect of sense of security (SS) and the moderating effect of social perception on the associations between interpersonal competence (IC) and the presence of meaning.

Methods:

A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1161 university students after the COVID-19 lockdown in China. A structural equation modeling approach was applied to examine the mediating effect of SS on the association between the presence of meaning and IC. A multigroup analysis was used to comprehend the moderating effect of social perception on the model.

Results:

SS indicated a complete mediating effect on the path from IC to the presence of meaning in the social preference group. Meanwhile, the moderating effect of social perception mainly occurred on the pathway of IC to SS between the social avoidance and social preference groups.

Conclusions:

IC influences the presence of meaning through different paths for different groups. University students with social preference are more capable of obtaining SS from their IC and further experience more meaning in life.

Keywords

meaning in lifeinterpersonal competencesense of securitysocial perceptionuniversity students

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Stress and Brain
Volume 3 Issue 2,
October 2023
Pages 96-107
DOI: 10.26599/SAB.2022.9060035
Cite this article:
Luo W, Li Z. Interpersonal Competence and Meaning in Life for University Students: A multi-group Model. Stress and Brain, 2023, 3(2): 96-107. https://doi.org/10.26599/SAB.2022.9060035

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Received: 11 May 2023
Revised: 28 August 2023
Accepted: 14 September 2023
Published: 05 October 2023
© The Author(s) 2023

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attributtion-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission.
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