The Relationship Between Perceived Social Support and College Adaptation: The Mediating Role of Sense of Meaning in Life

Adaptation is an important research topic in developmental psychology. College adaptation is an important challenge faced by college students, and the quality of college adaptation is closely related to students physical and mental health and development. Social support is an important factor affecting college students school adaptation. This study mainly explores the role of meaning in life between college students perceived social support and school adaptation. The study used the College Student Adaptability Inventory, the Perceived Social Support Scale and the Meaning in Life Questionnaire to conduct an online questionnaire survey of 2192 college students. SPSS27.0 software was used for correlation analysis and regression analysis, and the mediating effect of sense of life meaning was tested by Process macro program. The results showed that: (1) there were two significant positive correlations between college students perceived social support, sense of life meaning and school adaptation; (2) sense of life meaning played a partial mediating role between college students perceived social support and school adaptation. In a word, college students perceived social support can not only directly affect their school adaptation level, but also indirectly affect their school adaptation level by affecting their sense of life meaning. Therefore, university student workers need to pay attention to the social support situation of students and strengthen their life education.