Academic stress profiles and bedtime procrastination among college students: the mediating role of rumination and the moderating effect of perceived stress

Background While academic stress is a recognized predictor of sleep disturbances, traditional variable-centered research often obscures the population heterogeneity within this relationship. Adopting a person-centered perspective, this study identified latent configurations of academic stress among college students and examined the psychological mechanisms linking these profiles to bedtime procrastination (BPS). Methods A sample of 741 Chinese university students completed validated measures of academic stress, rumination dimensions, perceived stress, and BPS. Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was utilized to classify academic stress subtypes. Subsequently, a moderated mediation model was tested to evaluate the parallel mediating roles of two rumination dimensions—symptom rumination and reflection—and the moderating effect of perceived stress. Results LPA identified four distinct latent profiles: Pressure-Insensitive (11%), Well-Adapted (32%), Commonly Burdened (45%), and Overwhelmed (12%). The Overwhelmed group exhibited the highest BPS scores ( M = 0.325), significantly higher than the Pressure-Insensitive group ( M = −0.283). Mediation analysis revealed divergent cognitive pathways: Symptom rumination functioned as a maladaptive mediator that increased BPS (β = 0.24, p = 0.002), whereas reflection acted as an adaptive mediator that buffered the adverse effects (β = −0.22, p < 0.01). Notably, the Overwhelmed profile was the strongest predictor of symptom rumination (β = 1.57, p < 0.001). Furthermore, perceived stress significantly moderated the link between the Commonly Burdened profile and symptom rumination (Interaction B = 0.27, p = 0.009). Simple slope analysis confirmed that this maladaptive pathway was activated only under high levels of perceived stress (Slope = 0.39, p < 0.01) but remained insignificant at low levels. Conclusion These findings underscore the dual nature of rumination and the “gating” role of subjective appraisal in the stress-sleep relationship. The results suggest that stratified interventions targeting specific cognitive-emotional deficits within different stress profiles are essential for mitigating sleep self-regulation failures among university studencvts.