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. 2024 Dec 6;14(12):1172.
doi: 10.3390/bs14121172.

Research on the Effect Mechanism of Career-Specific Parental Support Promoting Meaning in Life of Chinese Higher Vocational College Students

Huadi Wang  1 , Jiawen Liu  1 , Chunyu Li  1 , Anqi Fang  1 , Gongjing Wang  2
Affiliations

Research on the Effect Mechanism of Career-Specific Parental Support Promoting Meaning in Life of Chinese Higher Vocational College Students

Huadi Wang et al. Behav Sci (Basel). .

Abstract

Adolescent students' meaning in life is an important topic of research in positive psychology and educational psychology. Meaning in life is of outstanding value to the whole career development of Chinese higher vocational college students (CHVCS), and parental behaviors have a profound impact on CHVCS' meaning in life. In order to explore the mechanism of the role of career-specific parental support in promoting CHVCS' meaning in life from the perspective of career, this study was based on career construction theory (CCT) and investigated 2498 CHVCS. The results showed that (1) career-specific parental support could directly and positively influence meaning in life; (2) core self-evaluations, career exploration, and career adaptability individually played a partially mediating effect in the relationship between career-specific parental support and meaning in life; (3) "core self-evaluations + career exploration", "core self-evaluations + career adaptability", "career exploration + career adaptability", and "core self-evaluations + career exploration + career adaptability" play a partial chain mediating effect in the relationship between career-specific parental support and meaning in life. This study contributes to meaning in life in CHVCS, enriches career-related research based on CCT, and has important implications for career counseling from a construct perspective.

Keywords: career adaptability; career exploration; career-specific parental support; core self-evaluations; meaning in life.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Research framework for this study. Note: Firstly, this study focuses on the linear process of the influence of career-specific parental support on meaning in life and therefore explores the cyclical and non-linear process of career development at a theoretical level only. Secondly, although the possible influence of factors such as sociocultural and mental health on career development was considered, these factors were not empirically analyzed in this study. These two points constitute the limitations of this study, i.e., this study explored the influence of certain complex factors at the theoretical level but did not specifically analyze their role in the empirical study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Research hypothesis model.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mediating effect model. Note: ***p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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