A Study On The Influence Of College Students’ Employment Anxiety On Episodic Future Thinking

Episodic future thinking is a kind of forward-looking thinking,which affect people’s decision-making in events.Many studies found that episodic future thinking will be affected by emotion.The employment anxiety of college students may make them fall into negative episodic future thinking,and then have a negative impact on the employment choice and even future development of college students.This study examined the impact of college students’ employment anxiety on episodic future thinking,and explores the mediating role of rumination.Using convenient sampling,an online questionnaire survey was conducted on 480 college students’ employment anxiety,rumination,negative episodic future thinking and positive episodic future thinking.The following conclusions are drawn:(1)The results show that: the overall employment anxiety of college students is at the upper middle level,mainly at the middle level;college students’ employment anxiety has significant differences in gender,major,whether they are the only child and grade.(2)The results show that the overall rumination situation of college students is higher than the average level;There are significant differences in rumination among college students in major,whether they are the only child,grade and employment status.(3)People generally believe that positive events are more likely to occur in the future;college students’ negative episodic future thinking has significant differences in age,place of origin,grade and employment status;college students’ positive episodic future thinking has significant differences in whether they are the only child,place of origin and grade.(4)Employment anxiety has a significant positive correlation with negative episodic future thinking and a significant negative correlation with positive episodic future thinking.That is,the higher the level of employment anxiety,the easier it is to produce negative episodic future thinking,and the less likely it is to produce positive episodic future thinking.(5)There is a significant positive correlation between employment anxiety and rumination,and there is a significant positive correlation between each dimension of employment anxiety(subjective feeling,physiological behavioral response)and each dimension in the rumination scale(symptom rumination,Brooding,reflective pondering).(6)Rumination is positively correlated with negative episodic future thinking,that is,the stronger the rumination,the easier it is to produce negative episodic future thinking.Rumination had almost no correlation with positive episodic future thinking.(7)Rumination has a partial mediating effect between employment anxiety and negative episodic future thinking.This study enriches the current empirical research in the field of employment anxiety and episodic future thinking,provides a new way to solve the negative practical problems faced by college students in employment or future development,and provides new ideas for colleges and universities and society to consult and guide college students’ career and life planning.