The Psychological Mechanism Of Employment Stress On Employment Anxiety And Intervention Of College Students

With the rapid development of higher education and the continuous expansion of colleges and universities,the number of college graduates is increasing rapidly and the employment situation is formidable.The employment of college graduates is already a significant social problem.Fresh graduates,in particular,have high expectations for their future jobs and careers,and the reality sometimes fails to match their expectations.The setbacks and difficulties encountered in the process of choosing a career and employment will often increase their anxiety and produce a variety of psychological difficulties.Many studies and surveys have shown that employment anxiety is one of the most common psychological problems among college students in China.The outbreak of the epidemic and the post-epidemic era have intensified these employment problems and negative emotions of college students.How to effectively intervene in the employment anxiety of college students with the background of the epidemic has become a hot issue in the current research field.Based on this,the first study of this study focused on college students and adopted the cross-sectional questionnaire method to discuss the influence and mechanism of employment stress,career adaptability and cognitive bias on employment anxiety.In the second study,online computer intervention was conducted with college students with high employment anxiety based on the self-designed intervention materials and intervention program of interpretation bias modification(IBM),and the effect of the intervention was tested.The conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)The employment anxiety of college students is at a medium high level(M=2.66,SD=0.63).Female,education majors,graduating class,rural origin and relative poverty are high risk factors for employment anxiety of college students.There are 225 students in the high level group(top 27%)and 212 students in the low level group(bottom 27%).Among the seven grades of undergraduate and graduate students,sophomores have the highest level of employment anxiety and the proportion of students with high employment anxiety is the largest,followed by senior students and junior graduate students as graduating classes.And freshmen have the lowest level of employment anxiety.The employment stress of college students is at a medium level(M=2.97,SD=0.73).Female,rural origin,relative poverty,children who have brothers or sisters are high risk factors of employment stress of college students.The career adaptability of college students is at a high level(M=3.91,SD=0.49).High educational background,graduating class,choice of self-employment,relatively wealthy,the only child are protective factors for the career adaptability of college students.The cognitive bias of college students is at a medium level(M=2.50,SD=0.56).Economic and management major,low educational background,rural origin and relative poverty are high risk factors for college students’cognitive bias.(2)A moderated mediating model of employment anxiety of college students:employment stress can positively affect employment anxiety(direct effect=0.760,SE=0.023,95%CI=[0.715,0.805]),and affect employment anxiety by negatively affecting career adaptability(indirect effect=0.011,SE=0.005,95%CI=[0.003,0.026]).That is,career adaptability plays a partial mediating role between employment stress and employment anxiety.Cognitive bias can adjust the relationship between employment stress and career adaptability and thus positively affect employment anxiety(β=0.190,SE=0.028,t=6.794,95%CI=[0.135,0.245],ΔR~2=0.055).In other words,negative cognitive bias can positively affect employment anxiety of college students by increasing the negative impact of employment stress on career adaptability.(3)In this study,a dimension of employment-related explanatory bias was added to the original Interpretation Questionnaire(IQ).The revised total questionnaire and sub questionnaires showed good differentiation and correlation,and had good internal reliability(Cronbachα=0.837～0.935).The model fitting results of the self-compiled employment-related dimension sub questionnaire are reasonable and it can be used to measure the employment-related explanatory bias in intervention.The overall questionnaire did not fit well and will need further revision in the future.But since IQ is a mature questionnaire,it was used as a measure of employment-independent explanatory bias in the intervention.(4)After controlling for baseline levels,employment anxiety,employment-related and employment-independent interpretation bias were significantly lower in the intervention group in post-test and one-month follow-up than in pre-test(p<0.001),and the post-test employment anxiety in the intervention group were significantly lower than those in the placebo group and the control group(F=12.046,p<0.001).The self-designed employment anxiety intervention program based on IBM had a significant effect on alleviating the employment anxiety of college students and improving their negative interpretation bias,and this positive effect could be maintained within a month.Although the placebo group also significantly reduced employment anxiety among college students,it did not work by reducing negative interpretation bias as in the intervention group.