Unraveling the effect of ambivalence over emotional expression on subjective wellbeing in Chinese college students in romantic relationships: A multiple mediation model

Abstract

The sudden and unpredictable outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has severely threatened young adults’ physical and mental health and damaged the quality of relationships. As a critical stage of development, their well-being is more vulnerable to adverse environments which may lead to profound negative long-life mental health status. The current study aimed to investigate the mediation effects of fear of intimacy and attachment avoidance in the association between ambivalence over emotional expression and subjective wellbeing. A sample of 555 Chinese college students who are currently involved in romantic relationships (Mean age = 19.69, SD age = 1.36, 52% females) completed anonymous questionnaires regarding ambivalence over emotional expression, fear of intimacy, attachment avoidance, and subjective wellbeing. The findings revealed that ambivalence over emotional expression can predict negative subjective wellbeing of college students in romantic relationships significantly, and fear of intimacy and attachment avoidance played a sequentially mediating role in the association between ambivalence over emotional expression and subjective wellbeing. Surprisingly, when considering attachment avoidance independently, we found it had an inhibitory action on the link between ambivalence over emotional expression and subjective wellbeing. The present study contributes to a better understanding of how ambivalence over emotional expression can decrease subjective wellbeing, and also has implications for the intervention of students’ subjective wellbeing and closeness during the period of COVID-19.

Romantic relationships and attitudes in Asian emerging adults: Review and critique

“…Sexual orientation information was provided for 8.0% of the overall participants, predominantly indicating a heterosexual orientation among participants (Ho et al, 2010; Li et al, 2023), with only 3% identifying as other sexual orientations. Furthermore, 2% of the participants were recruited during the COVID‐19 pandemic to investigate relational well‐being during this specific period (Wang et al, 2022), and 6% had experienced parental divorce to investigate the relationship between the timing of parental divorce and emerging adults' marital expectations (Pan, 2014).…”

“…Thus, factors related to ambivalence and immature identity are shown to be negatively related to emerging adults' romantic relationship qualities. Specifically, immature identity statuses, ambivalence over emotional expression, and narcissism are associated with poor relationship well‐being and satisfaction, and higher breakup stress (Moore et al, 2012; Wang et al, 2022; Ye et al, 2016), whereas gratitude and high self‐esteem are positively related to relationship satisfaction (Wu et al, 2022; Ye et al, 2016).…”

The perks of being grateful to partners: Expressing gratitude in relationships predicts relational self‐efficacy and life satisfaction during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Indeed, recent investigations provide support on the psychological payoffs of having intimate relationships during the pandemic such as higher well‐being, quality of life, and life satisfaction (Sisson et al, 2022; Tsang et al, 2023). On the other hand, ambiguities in emotional expression among collegiate students in romantic relationships during the pandemic were found to be negatively associated with subjective well‐being (Wang et al, 2022). Although the findings of the present study coheres with recent evidence on how gratitude promotes well‐being during the pandemic outbreak (Datu et al, 2022; Fekete & Deichert, 2022; Jiang, 2022), we believe that it is the first research of its kind to demonstrate a longitudinal link between domain‐specific gratitude and life satisfaction amid this health crisis.…”

Self-Assessed Experience of Emotional Involvement in Sensory Analysis Performed in Virtual Reality

“…It consists of a list of adjectives that describe different feelings and emotions, and respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they have experienced each emotion during a specific time frame [4]. The PANAS has been adapted and utilized in various cultural and linguistic environments to measure affective states in different populations [5,6]. As for sensory analysis, the PANAS is usually applied to measure the affective states of individuals involved in sensory evaluation processes.…”