Citation

Zeng P, Jin W, Shi Y, Hu W, Geng Y, Zhan T. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022; 19(21): e14581.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph192114581

PMID

36361460

Abstract

Negative emotions caused by break-up are the key work of university students' psychological intervention. It is important to explore the specific factors of break-up distress for university students' psychological intervention. Therefore, we investigated 869 university students to examine the effect of Machiavellianism and psychological capital on break-up distress, as well as its gender difference. The results indicated that high Machiavellians experience more break-up distress. Moreover, through structural equation models, we found that as for female university students, psychological capital mediated the relationship between Machiavellianism and break-up distress. However, as for male university students, the mediation effect was not significant. It means that for female university students, psychological capital acted as the mechanism to connect Machiavellianism and break-up distress.

Language: en

Keywords

break-up distress; gender difference; Machiavellianism; psychological capital