The Relationship Between Emotion Malleability Beliefs and School Adaptation of Middle School Boarders: A Chain Mediating Effect of Psychological Resilience and Peer Relationships

TL;DR

This study shows how beliefs about emotions can help middle school students living in dorms adjust better to school through improved resilience and friendships.

Contribution

The paper introduces a new model showing how emotion malleability beliefs influence school adaptation via resilience and peer relationships in boarding students.

Findings

Emotion malleability beliefs are directly linked to better school adaptation.

Resilience and peer relationships act as a chain mediator between emotion beliefs and school adaptation.

Targeting emotion malleability beliefs could improve adjustment through resilience and friendships.

Abstract

Middle school boarders are more prone to maladjustment to school due to a lack of parental accompaniment and long school hours. Focusing on this specific group, this study explored the effects of emotion malleability beliefs on their adjustment to school and their influential pathways, and constructed a hypothetical model with resilience and peer relationships as chain mediators. The Implicit Theories of Emotion Scale, the Adaptation to School Scale for Middle School Students, the Adolescents Resilience Scale, and the Peer Relationship Assessment Scale were applied to measure 511 middle school boarders. The results showed that there were significant positive correlations between emotion malleability beliefs, resilience, peer relationships, and adaptation to school. Emotion malleability beliefs directly influence adaptation to school and are indirectly associated with adaptation to school through the chain mediation of resilience and peer relationships. Our study emphasized the important influence of emotion malleability beliefs on boarding students’ adaptation to school, which also hinted to us that interventions targeting emotion malleability beliefs may help enhance resilience and peer relationships, thereby supporting school adaptation.

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