Exploring the Moderated Mediation of Hope: The Influence of College Students' Career Maturity on Happiness Mediated through Self-Identity

Career is related to the future and fate of individuals, and thus employment issues are prominent, especially in the context of the current global economic downturn.Employment pressure has always been one of the main pressures affecting the happiness of current college students.With the increasing number of college graduates in recent years, the concern about various aspects of career has increased significantly.This study aims to explore the moderated mediation of hope in the influence of college students' career maturity on happiness mediated through self-Identity.This study was conducted as a quantitative study.The respondents of the study were using the method of purposive sampling and were selected from students in 3 colleges in Jiangsu Province, China.After removing missing data and invalid questionnaires, 329 valid questionnaires were analyzed.By gender, the number of male students is higher, with 198.In terms of age, the largest number of people were 20 and below years old, with 229.By grade, the second year of college students have the largest number of students at 145.Frequency, reliability and correlation analysis were conducted using SPSS PC+ Win.Ver. 25, and the moderated mediating effect was analyzed using Version 4.2 of PROCESS macro.The results of the study revealed that college students have a positive relationship with self-identity and hope in the process of career maturity, but do not experience happiness, which is the outcome of career maturity.As hope increases, the impact of career maturity on happiness through self-identity appears to have a synergistic effect.That is to say, the mediating role of self-identity in the relationship between career maturity and happiness was moderated by hope.In line with this, the integrated ways to increase happiness by using career maturity, self-identity and hope in Chinese college students.