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. 2024 Sep 10;12(1):478.
doi: 10.1186/s40359-024-01990-5.

Adult attachment and love psychological stress among college students: the mediating role of core self-evaluation and the moderating role of meaning in life

Minghua Song  1 , Xianman Hu  2 , Shen Liu  3
Affiliations

Adult attachment and love psychological stress among college students: the mediating role of core self-evaluation and the moderating role of meaning in life

Minghua Song et al. BMC Psychol. .

Abstract

Background: With college students going into dating relationships, dating partners become their new attachment figures. We aimed to investigate the relationship between adult attachment, and love psychological stress among college students, which also explored the roles of core self-evaluation and meaning in life.

Methods: We conducted a questionnaire survey on 813 college students using the adult attachment scale, core self-evaluation scale, meaning in life scale, and love psychological stress scale. We constructed a moderated mediation model to analyze the relationship between adult attachment and love psychological stress, as well as the mediating effect of core self-evaluation and the moderating effect of meaning in life.

Results: The results showed that after controlling for single parent or not, adult attachment significantly negatively predicted love psychological stress of college students. Core self-evaluation partially mediated the relationship between adult attachment and love psychological stress of college students. The second half of the mediation model was moderated by meaning in life, that is, with the increase of meaning in life, the negative predictive effect of core self-evaluation on love psychological stress of college students gradually strengthened. The findings of this study demonstrate the detrimental impact of adult attachment on love psychological stress of college students, as well as the mediating core self-evaluation and the moderating role of meaning in life.

Conclusions: The mediating and moderating effect of adult attachment between love psychological stress, as well as the mediating effect of core self-evaluation and the moderating effect of meaning in life were confirmed. Overall, promoting the healthy development of adult attachment and helping them shape a positive meaning in life can enhance individuals' core self-evaluation, thus alleviating love psychological stress among college students. It can also provide references for mental health education in colleges and universities.

Keywords: Adult attachment; love psychological stressors; College students; Core self-evaluation; Meaning in life.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Moderated mediation model
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Moderating role of meaning in life in the relationship between core self-evaluation and love psychological stress
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