Social cure in the time of COVID-19: Social identity and belongingness predict greater well-being and academic motivation in university students

Abstract

Social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic increased negative affect and feelings of loneliness among university students.

Objective

Given that identifying as a member of a social group, like a university student, serves as a protective factor against diminished well-being, we examined whether students’ social identity might offer a “social cure” during COVID-related remote learning.

Participants

Three hundred fifty-six students from a large, public university that was fully remote in 2021.

Results

Students with a stronger social identity as a member of their university reported lower loneliness and greater positive affect balance during remote learning. Social identification was also associated with greater academic motivation, whereas two well-established predictors of positive student outcomes – perceived social support and academic performance – were not. Nonetheless, academic performance, but not social identification, predicted lower general stress and COVID-related worry.

Conclusions

Social identity may be a potential social cure for university students who are learning remotely.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• remote learning
• social cure
• social identity
• well-being

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of Canada and received approval from the McMaster Research Ethics Board.

Notes

1 Please see the Supplementary File for information about why we posed a research question instead of hypotheses.

2 We also analyzed the yes/no responses separately by dummy-coding them (1 = yes, 0 = no) and calculating the average. When stress was operationalized this way, the pattern of results for stress was the same, but because reliability of this scale was low (α = .58), we decided to use the 6-point scale incorporating severity assessments instead.

3 We stated in our preregistration that COVID-related stress would be measured using items adapted from Weinstein and Nguyen’s6⁵ COVID-19 stressors checklist. Using a yes/no format, participants indicated whether they had experienced eight circumstances since the implementation of social distancing policies in March 2020 (e.g. lost your job). We added two additional items (have a parent who lost their job, were worried that COVID-19 would impact your university education). Responses to these 10 items were dummy-coded (1 = yes, 0 = no) and averaged. However, the reliability of these items was low (α = .56), and as such, we decided instead to use the two items measuring COVID-related worry described earlier.

Additional information

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.