School Identification Alleviates Depressive Mood Among Chinese College Students: The Chain Mediating Role of Social Exclusion and Sense of Control

Depression represents a growing public health concern globally, with the mental health of college students requiring targeted attention. Drawing on the social cure theory, self-determination theory, and the agency-communion model, the current study explored the mechanisms linking school identification to depressive mood among Chinese college students. Specifically, this cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the association between school identification and depressive mood, and whether social exclusion and sense of control mediate this relationship. A sample of 981 college students (464 males and 517 females) completed self-reported measures of school identification, depressive mood, social exclusion, and sense of control. Results showed that (1) School identification was negatively associated with college students’ depressive mood. (2) School identification affected depressive mood through three significant indirect pathways: the single mediating path via social exclusion, the single mediating path via sense of control, and the chain mediating path from social exclusion to sense of control. These findings reveal that the mechanism by which school identification alleviates depressive mood lies in first providing communion resources (reducing social exclusion) and then enhancing agency resources (increasing sense of control), thereby providing empirical support for the agency-communion model and offering practical implications for educational interventions targeting college students’ depressive mood.