This study aimed to investigate the relationships between future time perspectives (FTP) and risk of being not in employment, education, or training (NEET) with the mediating role of achievement goal motivations among undergraduate students in Vietnam. It revealed that FTP was negatively related to NEET risk, indicating students who focused on their future seemed more likely to decrease the risk of being NEET. Among achievement goals, mastery-approach orientation and performance-avoidance orientation played mediating roles in the FTP and NEET risk relationship. Precisely, mastery-approach orientation played a complete mediating effect in the female sample while performance-avoidance orientation acted as a partial mediator in the male sample (explained by the social role theory). The findings enrich the understanding of NEET risk and its relevant factors, as well as contribute to the educational field regarding undergraduates’ future planning and intervention to enhance motivation across genders. The implications and limitations of these findings were discussed.

This study aimed to investigate the relationships between passive social network usage (PSNU) and depression/negative emotions over time with the mediating role of envy among Vietnamese adolescents. First, it revealed that PSNU had a simultaneous effect on depression/negative emotions as well as at different time points, indicating that social network site behaviors can predict psychological states over time (explained by the social comparison theory). Second, the autoregressive effect also confirmed a potential reciprocal relationship between PSNU and depression, whereas PSNU appeared to have an impact on negative emotions but not the other way around. Specifically, depression at Time 1 was positively associated with PSNU at Time 2, whereas negative emotions did not exhibit a similar pattern (explained by the cognitive dissonance theory). The different associations were interpreted as depression having cognitive elements, while negative emotions were thought to be purely emotional states. The results demonstrated that behavior may potentially have a long-lasting effect on mental health (both negative emotions and depression), while it was depression, rather than negative emotions, that had a long-term effect on behaviors. Third, envy played a mediating role that connected the changes of PSNU and depression/negative emotions. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.