Motivation-focused thinking: Buffering against stress-related physical symptoms and depressive symptomology

Abstract

Developmental transitions are experienced throughout the life course and necessitate adapting to consequential and unpredictable changes that can undermine health. Our six-month study (n = 239) explored whether selective secondary control striving (motivation-focused thinking) protects against the elevated levels of stress and depressive symptoms increasingly common to young adults navigating the challenging school-to-university transition. Path analyses supplemented with tests of moderated mediation revealed that, for young adults who face challenging obstacles to goal attainment, selective secondary control indirectly reduced long-term stress-related physical and depressive symptoms through selective primary control and previously unexamined measures of discrete emotions. Results advance the existing literature by demonstrating that (a) selective secondary control has health benefits for vulnerable young adults and (b) these benefits are largely a consequence of the process variables proposed in Heckhausen et al.’s (2010) theory.

Keywords:

• motivation
• goal engagement
• primary and secondary control
• psychological and physical health

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This calculation is based on an 11% prevalence among American university students (ACHA, 2012) relative to a 7% prevalence in the American general population (Kessler et al., 2005).

2. Note that although the transition from high school to university can be construed as a discrete shift (e.g. high school students become university students on the first day of class), we regard the process of adapting to this major developmental transition as one that occurs over an extended period of time and throughout the first year of university. This is because many first-year students struggle to successfully navigate novel, unpredictable and ongoing challenges during this transition that include new living arrangements, financial responsibilities, critical career choices, novel learning environments, increased pressures to excel and frequent failures (see Perry, 1991, 2003; Perry, Stupnisky, Hall, Chipperfield, & Weiner, 2010).

3. Note that in densely populated regions containing a variety of academic institutions, some students with low HSGs may calibrate their level of challenge by choosing to enrol in less challenging universities and programmes. However, this is unlikely to be the case for low HSG students in the present sample who were enrolled at the only large, research-intensive university in an expansive Canadian province with a small population and who therefore had limited options for post-secondary education. More broadly, evidence suggests many university students may struggle to calibrate their level of challenge given that national estimates indicate nearly 30% of freshman withdraw from their institutions and less than 60% graduate after six years (Snyder & Dillow, 2013).

4. Secondary (r_T1–T2 = .61) and primary (r_T1–T2 = .63) control were also assessed at Time 2, and both measures exhibited moderate stability over time. Assessing primary control at Time 2 also enabled us to examine whether secondary control’s effects remained reliable when accounting for autoregressive effects. Simple slope analyses indicated secondary control remained a significant predictor of Time 2 primary control at low and high HSG despite accounting for variability in the Time 1 measure.

5. Because data on Time 2 measures were also collected at Time 1 (i.e. positive and negative emotion, depressive symptoms and stress-related physical symptoms), we conducted supplemental ordinary least square regression (OLS) analyses to determine whether significant paths in the depressive and stress-related physical symptoms models remained reliable when accounting for autoregressive effects. All effects remained significant when accounting for variability in the Time 1 measures.

6. As part of our supplemental analyses, we conducted a simple Secondary Control × HSG moderation model to determine whether secondary control promoted performance for students with low HSGs in the absence of the mediators. Consistent with the preliminary results reported earlier, these simple slope analyses revealed that secondary control predicted increased performance for those with low (β = .24, p = .007) but not high (β = −.06, p = .427) HSGs despite controlling for age and gender.

7. Data on students’ first test scores (September) were also collected, and supplemental OLS regression analyses indicated that both positive and negative emotion remained reliable predictors of Time 3 test performance (April) when accounting for autoregressive effects (i.e. students’ initial test scores).

8. Calculations of the magnitudes of selective secondary control’s indirect effects on the health/performance outcomes are based on only significant individual paths.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship and a Manitoba Graduate Scholarship to the first author, a SSHRC insight grant [435-2012-1143] and a Royal Society of Canada and Alexander von Humboldt research grant to the second author, and an operating grant from SSHRC [410-2010-2049] to the third author.