Exploring the Moderating Role of Personality in the Relationship between Self Affirmation Intervention, Hope and Optimism among Undergraduates
Keywords:
Self-affirmation, Hope, Optimism, Openness to experience, UndergraduatesAbstract
Background: Undergraduate students face significant amount of stress that results in poor academic performance and decline in wellbeing. Self-Affirmation interventions are brief, cost effective strategies that help in developing positive psychological resources. Objective: To find whether OCEAN personality traits moderate the effect of Self-Affirmation on Hope and Optimism in Psychological Capital framework among undergraduates. Method: Quasi-experimental between-subjects design was used, 200 Participants between 18-25 years were recruited from Amity University, Jaipur. On day 1 participants of both groups completed NEO-FFI, Hope and Optimism sub-scales of CPC-12R. Immediately after the pre-test and before post-test on day 3, a Self-Affirmation writing task was given to intervention group participants. No intervention was provided to the control group participants on either day, they completed CPC-12R on day 3.Moderation analysis for personality traits was done using PROCESS Macro Model 1(Hayes, 2022).Results: Hope analysis revealed no significant moderation effect of OCEAN traits. For Optimism, moderation model was significant (R² =.763, p <.001), group and Openness to experience interaction was found significant (b = 0.091, p =.012). Conclusion: Findings suggest that personality traits such as Openness to Experience may influence the effect of Self¬¬¬-Affirmation intervention on Optimism...
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