Three-Wave Longitudinal Survey on the Relationship between Neuroticism and Depressive Symptoms of First-Year College Students: Addictive Use of Social Media as a Moderated Mediator

Weiqi Mu, Dongyun Zhu, Yanhong Wang, Fugui Li, Liyuan Ye, Kexin Wang and Mingjie Zhou
Additional contact information
Weiqi Mu: CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Dongyun Zhu: CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Yanhong Wang: Mental Health Counseling Center, Yang’ En University, 362014 Quanzhou, China
Fugui Li: CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Liyuan Ye: CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Kexin Wang: College of Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310007, China
Mingjie Zhou: CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 17, 1-13

Abstract: First-year college students’ adaptation problems and related mental health have attracted researchers’ attention. The current research focuses on the depressive symptoms of first-year college students and aims to explore the relationship between the neuroticism trait and depressive symptoms, the mediating effect of addictive use of social media, and the moderating effect of psychological resilience. Three-wave longitudinal data from 1128 first-year students at a university in Fujian Province, China, were collected within three months of their enrollment. PROCESS macro for SPSS with bootstrapping was used to test the model. Results showed that the prevalence of moderate to severe severity of depressive symptoms in first-year students was 10.28% (T1) and 11.17% (T3). Addictive use of social media (T2) plays a moderated mediator role in the relationship between neuroticism (T1) and depressive symptoms (T3) of first-year students. Specifically, a low neuroticism individual does not necessarily have a less addictive use of social media. Psychological resilience (T1) moderated the above mediation. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Keywords: depressive symptoms; neuroticism; addictive use of social media; psychological resilience; moderated mediation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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