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SECTION 1: DISABILITY & TRAUMANegative Emotion or Problem Content? Testing Explanations of the Peanuts Eff ect: SHUJI SUZUKI ............ 1

The Music Perception Performance of Children With and Without Dyslexia in Taiwan: HOM-YI LEE, YUNG-SIANG SIE, SZ-CHI CHEN, AND MAN-CHEN CHENG .............................................................................. 13

Relationship Between Autistic Traits and Hoarding in a Large Non-clinical Chinese Sample: Mediating Eff ect of Anxiety and Depression: WEI XU, ZHONGFANG FU, JIANPING WANG, AND YI ZHANG ........ 23

SECTION 2: EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY & MARKETINGEff ects of Autonomy-supportive and Controlling Styles on Situational Self-determined Motivation: Some

Unexpected Results of the Commitment Procedure: CAMILLE AMOURA, SOPHIE BERJOT, NICOLAS GIL-LET, SYLVAIN CARUANA, AND LUCIE FINEZ ........................................................................................... 33

Caregiving Representations at Work and the Moderating Role of Job Self-effi cacy: ABIRA REIZER AND AMIR HETSRONI ............................................................................................................................................. 60

Entrepreneurial Stressors as Predictors of Entrepreneurial Burnout: XUEYAN WEI, SHUANGXIN CANG, AND ROBERT D. HISRICH .............................................................................................................................. 74

Using Exit Surveys to Assess Counterproductive Work Behaviors: A Case Study: GABRIELA PECKER AND SAUL FINE ............................................................................................................................................ 89

SECTION 3: MEASURES & STATISTICSValidation of the Italian Translation of the Aff ective Neuroscience Personality Scales: LORENZO PASCAZIO,

STEFANO BEMBICH, ILARIA B. NARDONE, CRISTINA VECCHIET, GIUSEPPINA GUARINO, AND ANDREA CLARICI ................................................................................................................................................ 97

Paranormal Beliefs of Latvian College Students: A Latvian Version of the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale: A. UTINANS, G. ANCANE, J. J. TOBACYK, G. BOYRAZ, M. M. LIVINGSTON, AND J. S. TOBACYK .......... 116

SECTION 4: MENTAL & PHYSICAL HEALTHUsing Kollar’s Solution-focused Pastoral Counseling for Bereaved Clients: The Process of Empow-

erment from Clients’ Perception: PETER JEN DER PAN, F. LIANG-YU DENG, SHIO-LING TSAI, AND S. S. JENNY YUAN ................................................................................................................................ 127

Confi dence: A Critical Review of the Literature and an Alternative Perspective for General and Specifi c Self-confi dence: EMRAH ONEY AND GIZEM OKSUZOGLU-GUVEN ........................................................... 149

Examining Relations Between Locus of Control, Loneliness, Subjective Well-being, and Preference for Online Social Interaction: YINGHUA YE AND LIN LIN ........................................................................ 164

Assessing Diachronic Reasoning: Exploratory Measures of Perceived Self-change in Young Adults: STEVEN C. HERTLER, HERBERT KRAUSS, AND ALFRED WARD ............................................................................ 176

SECTION 5: RELATIONSHIPS & COMMUNICATIONSAssessing Implicit Mate Preferences Among Chinese and Japanese Women by Providing Love, Sex, or

Money Cues: ZHENG JIN, KIMIHIRO SHIOMURA, AND LIZHU JIANG ...................................................... 195Resource-independent Negative Eff ects of Foreign Language on Analogical Problem Solving: TOSHIHIRO

WAKEBE, SHO HIDAKA, AND EIICHIRO WATAMURA .............................................................................. 207Social Competence: Evaluation of Assertiveness in Spanish Adolescents: ANTONIO LÓPEZ CASTEDO, MAR-

GARITA PINO JUSTE, AND JOSÉ DOMÍNGUEZ ALONSO ............................................................................. 219Bilingual Memory Representations in Less Fluent Chinese–English Bilinguals: An Event-related Potential

Study: CHAO-YING CHEN, JOHN XUEXIN ZHANG, LI LI, AND RUIMING WANG ................................... 230Places for Help: Micro-level Variation in Helping Behavior Toward a Stranger: LUBOMIR LAMY, JACQUES

FISCHER-LOKOU, AND NICOLAS GUÉGUEN ............................................................................................ 242An Exploratory Study on School Children’s Intent Attributions for Parental Structuring Behaviors: LUFEI

ZHANG, VICKY C. W. TAM, WENDY W. N. WAN, PEIGUAN WU, AND CHUNG-LEUNG LUK ............... 249

SECTION 6: SOCIOCULTURAL ISSUES IN PSYCHOLOGYThe Lure Technique: Replication and Refi nement in a Field Setting: MARIE MARCHAND, ROBERT-VINCENT

JOULE, AND NICOLAS GUÉGUEN ........................................................................................................... 275Eff ects of “Face” Consciousness on Status Consumption Among Chinese Consumers: Perceived Social

Value as a Mediator: JIE LI, XIN-AN ZHANG, AND GONG SUN ........................................................... 280Infl uence of Culture on Tripartite Self-concept Development in Adolescence: A Comparison Between

Han and Uyghur Cultures: ZIWIDA ABDUKERAM, MARHABA MAMAT, WEI LUO, AND YANHONG WU ...................................................................................................................................................... 292

Gender Diff erences in Chinese Adolescents’ Subjective Well-being: The Mediating Role of Self-effi cacy: ZE-WEI MA, WEI-NAN ZENG, AND KAI-YIN YE ................................................................................. 311

Chinese Characteristic Religiosity: Comment on Jing (2014): RUIDA ZHU, CHAO LIU, AND XIAOQIN MAI ..................................................................................................................................................... 322

Oldsters and Ngrams: Age Stereotypes Across Time: SUSAN E. MASON, CLARA V. KUNTZ, AND CELESTINE M. MCGILL ......................................................................................................................................... 324

00PR February 15 cover.indd 200PR February 15 cover.indd 2 11/02/15 11:44 AM11/02/15 11:44 AM

ISSN 0033-2941DOI 10.2466/07.09.PR0.116k14w3

© Psychological Reports 2015Psychological Reports: Mental & Physical Health

EXAMINING RELATIONS BETWEEN LOCUS OF CONTROL, LONELINESS, SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING, AND PREFERENCE

FOR ONLINE SOCIAL INTERACTION 1 , 2

YINGHUA YE

Zhejiang University

LIN LIN

University of North Texas

Summary .— The unprecedented popularity of online communication has raised interests and concerns among the public as well as in scholarly circles. Online com-munications have pushed people farther away from one another. This study is a further examination of the eff ects of online communications on well-being, in particular: Locus of control, Loneliness, Subjective well-being, and Preference for online social interaction. Chinese undergraduate students ( N = 260; 84 men, 176 women; M age = 20.1 yr., SD = 1.2) were questioned about demographic information and use of social media as well as four previously validated questionnaires related to well-being. Most participants used QQ, a popular social networking program, as the major channel for online social interactions. Locus of control was positively related to Loneliness and Preference for online social interaction, but negatively related to Subjective well-being; Loneliness (positively) and Subjective well-being (negatively) were related to Preference for online social interaction; and Loneliness and Subjective well-being had a full mediating eff ect between the relationships of Locus of control and Preference for online social interaction. The fi ndings of the study showed that more lonely, unhappy, and externally controlled students were more likely to be engaged in online social interaction. Improving students' locus of control, loneliness, and happiness may help reduce problematic Internet use.

Social media is transforming the way people communicate ( Norman, 2012 ). The most widely used social media or network tools for instant com-munication in China are QQ, WeChat, Micro-blogging, and Renren [ China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC), 2014 ], similar to Skype, Twitter, and Facebook, with free web or mobile communication and inter-actions such as online chat, fi le transfer, and texting. According to Tencent Financial Reports of 2014, there were about 829 million QQ monthly acti-vated users and 438 million Weixin and WeChat monthly activated users at the end of the second quarter of 2014. These social networking sites are heavily used by Chinese college students and have become an important part of their lives ( Kong, Ran, & Song, 2010 ; CINIC, 2013 ). It is not clear if individuals are benefi ting from extensive online social interactions ( Ka-

2015, 116, 1, 164-175.

1 Address correspondence to Yinghua Ye, College of Education, Zhejiang University, Hang-zhou, Zhejiang 310028, People's Republic of China or e-mail ( [email protected] ). 2 This study was supported by the Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Minis-try of Education of China (Grant No. 12YJCZH256), the “Zi-jing Plan” and “Cross Research Foundation” of Zhejiang University, and the “Zhi Jiang Youth Social Science Scholars” of Zhejiang Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences Circles.

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PREFERENCE FOR ONLINE SOCIAL INTERACTION 165

plan & Haenlein, 2010 ). A preference for online social interaction may fa-cilitate problematic Internet use ( Morahan-Martin & Schumacher, 2000 ; Caplan, 2005 ). Caplan (2003 ) found that loneliness and depression pre-dicted a preference for online social interaction. Hollenbaugh and Ferris (2014) showed that personality factors are related to Facebook users' self-disclosures. More research is needed to examine the relationships between people's preference for online social network use and psychological health ( Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000 ; Nithya & Julius, 2007 ).

Preference for Online Social Interaction, Problematic Internet Use, and Personal-ity

Preference for online social interaction is defi ned as a “cognitive indi-vidual-diff erence construct characterized by beliefs that one is safer, more effi cacious, more confi dent, and more comfortable with online interper-sonal interactions and relationships than with traditional face-to-face so-cial activities” ( Caplan, 2003 , p. 629). Prior studies have discussed various factors with positive relations to preference for online social interaction, including social anxiety ( Caplan, 2007 ), loneliness ( Caplan, 2003 ), and low self-esteem ( Fioravanti, Dèttore, & Casale, 2012 ), as well as negative as-sociations such as emotional intelligence (intrapersonal r = −.52 and inter-personal r = −.37 emotional intelligence; Casale, Tella, & Fioravanti, 2013 ) and self-presentation skills ( Caplan, 2005 ). Research has shown that pref-erence for online social interaction, as a cognitive symptom, may facilitate problematic Internet use ( Morahan-Martin & Schumacher, 2000 ; Caplan, 2005 ). Problematic Internet use is a multidimensional symptom compris-ing negative social, academic, or professional consequences ( Caplan, 2002 , 2003 , 2005 ).

Based on the literature, Nadkarni and Hofmann (2012 ) suggested that social media use might be motivated by people's need to belong and need for self-presentation, and that the need for self-presentation might be asso-ciated with neuroticism, narcissism, shyness, self-esteem, and self-worth. Seidman's (2013 ) study further showed that the participants' self-reported agreeableness and neuroticism were correlated with belonging-related be-haviors and motivations, and their self-reported extraversion was associ-ated with more frequent use of Facebook for communication. Since pref-erence for online social interaction is a cognitive symptom of problematic Internet use ( Caplan, 2005 ), and personality traits have been tested to be associated with problematic Internet use, certain personality traits may be related to preference for online social interaction.

Locus of control refers to the extent to which people believe that they can control events that aff ect them ( Rotter, 1966 ). A person's locus of control is conceptualized as either internal or external. Those who have higher in-ternal locus of control tend to believe that they can control their lives while


Y. YE & L. LIN166

those who have higher external locus of control tend to believe that their lives and decisions are controlled by factors beyond their infl uence. People with a more external locus of control are more likely to engage in problematic Inter-net use ( Chak & Leung, 2004 ). The fi rst hypothesis is based on earlier studies that higher introversion and external locus of control were signifi cantly asso-ciated with use of social networking and more problematic Internet use, and also based on the close relationships between preference for online social in-teraction, problematic Internet use, and social network use:

Hypothesis 1 . There will be a positive relationship between exter-nal locus of control and preference for online social interaction.

Loneliness is a complex and unpleasant emotional response to a feel-ing of isolation. Loneliness usually includes anxious feelings of isolation or a lack of connectedness to other people and can be felt even when sur-rounded by other people ( Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2009 ). In addition to per-sonality factors, some studies have shown that interest in online interaction may be related to psychosocial health such as loneliness and depression. Specifi cally, Caplan (2003 ) assessed whether those who were lonely and de-pressed among 386 undergraduates preferred social interaction or Internet use. Loneliness (UCLA Loneliness Scale), depression (Beck Depression In-ventory–II), and preference for online social interaction (subscales of the Generalized Problematic Internet Use Scale: Perceived Social Benefi t and Perceived Social Control) were measured. The latter subscales assess posi-tive perceptions of Internet use and so plausibly measure preferences. The results showed that the loneliness (β = 0.19) and depression (β = 0.31) might lead to people's preference for online social interaction. Results also showed that preference for online social interaction plays an important role in the development of problematic Internet use. Caplan's (2005 ) subsequent study showed that those who scored lower on self-presentation skills scored higher on preference for online social interaction scale and preferred online social interactions to face-to-face communication (β = −0.40).

McKenna, Green, and Gleason (2002 ) reported that socially anxious and lonely people were more likely to feel that they could express their real selves on the Internet better than in face-to-face settings, so they were more likely to have online social interactions. In other words, extensive use of the Internet is likely to be associated with loneliness ( Kraut, Kiesler, Boneva, Cummings, Helgeson, & Crawford, 2002 ). The causal direction of this relation is not clear. Hamburger and Artzi (2003 ) used two compe-tence eff ect models to support the hypothesis that it was the loneliness of the women participants that led them to be attracted to the Internet, not the Internet use leading to the women's loneliness. Their results showed that loneliness mediated the relation between participants' neuroticism and the social use of the Internet.



Hypothesis 2 . There will be a positive relationship between loneli-ness and preference for online social interaction.

Subjective well-being refers to people's experience of their quality of life, and it includes both emotional reactions and cognitive judgments (Diener, 2011). Prior studies have examined the relationship between so-cial network use and users' mental health from a positive psychological perspective and have shown mixed results. Some studies reported a neg-ative correlation between the social network use and subjective well-be-ing (e.g., Kraut, Patterson, Lundmark, Kiesler, Mukopadhyay, & Scherlis, 1998 ; Kross, Verduyn, Demiralp, Park, Lee, Lin, et al ., 2013 ), while others reported positive relationship (e.g., Kraut, et al ., 2002 ; Valenzuela, Park, & Kee, 2009 ; Lee, Lee, & Kwon, 2011 ). Kross, et al . (2013 ) reported that over a 2-wk. period, the participants' frequency of Facebook use was negatively correlated with their life satisfaction. Lee, et al . (2011 ) reported that the time spent using social media was not related to subjective well-being, but the amount of self-disclosure on the social network was positively related to subjective well-being.

Whether the Internet has a positive or negative social eff ect may de-pend on the quality of people's online relationships and on what peo-ple give up to spend time online ( Kraut, et al ., 2002 ). Based on previous studies, it is safe to say that social network use and individuals' subjec-tive well-being are related to some extent. Subjective well-being is associ-ated with health and positive psychological behavior ( Diener, 2011 ), while preference for online social interaction tends to be associated with prob-lematic Internet use.

Hypothesis 3 . There will be a negative relationship between sub-jective well-being and preference for online social interaction.

Locus of control is also closely related to loneliness and subjective well-being ( García, Ramírez, & Jariego, 2002 ; Fiori, et al ., 2006 ). Hojat (1982 ) found externality in locus of control was positively correlated with loneli-ness ( r = .30). According to Karatas and Tagay (2012 ), people with a more in-ternal locus of control tended to report higher well-being or feeling happier than those with a more external locus of control ( r = .26). Apaolaza, Hart-mann, Medina, Barrutia, and Echebarria (2013 ) investigated the infl uence of the Spanish online social networking site Tuenti on psychological well-being among Spanish teenagers; structural equation modeling showed that socializing had a signifi cant negative eff ect on loneliness (β = −0.24), and loneliness was negatively related to psychological well-being (β = −0.27). Combined with the previous results about the relationship between locus of control, loneliness, subjective well-being, and preference for online social interaction, the authors therefore hypothesized that:


Y. YE & L. LIN168

Hypothesis 4 . Loneliness and subjective well-being each will have a mediating eff ect on the relationship between locus of control and preference for online social interaction.

METHOD

Participants A total of 260 undergraduate students were recruited for the study.

The participants (84 men, 176 women) came from four diff erent univer-sities in China. The majors represented were the arts ( n = 195), sciences ( n = 40), and engineering ( n = 25). Among the participants, there were 167 freshmen, 74 sophomores, and 19 juniors; 142 lived in the countryside, and 118 lived in the city. The participants were 18 to 24 yr. old ( M = 20.1, SD = 1.2).

Procedure The participants were asked to complete the questionnaires in their

classrooms or in the library. They were informed of the purpose of the study and informed that their participation was voluntary and anony-mous.

Measures Demographic information was collected including the participants'

age, sex, degree program, family income, and residency (from city or countryside due to the economic gap between the city and countryside in China). The participants were asked the following question: “Which so-cial media or networking program(s) do you use most often in your daily life? Please check one program below. You can check multiple options if you use them equally often or include others that are not listed: Renren,

Loneliness

Subjectivewell-being

External locusof control

POSI

Path a+

Path a-

Path b+

+

Path b

Path c

-

FIG. 1. Hypotheses of the relationships between locus of control, loneliness, subjective well-being, and preference for online social interaction (POSI).



Micro-blogging, WeChat, QQ, Facebook, Twitter, TianYa, Mop, Other.” In addition, they were asked to complete the questionnaires on locus of con-trol, loneliness, subjective well-being, and preference for online social in-teraction.

Locus of control .— Rotter's (1966 ) scale was adopted to measure the un-dergraduate participants' locus of control ( Wang, Wang, & Ma, 1999 ). Rot-ter's original internal-external Locus of Control Scale consisted of six fi ll-ers and 23 forced-choice pairs (e.g., sample pairs of the items: a. Many of the unhappy things in people's lives are partly due to bad luck; b. Peo-ple's misfortunes result from the mistakes they make). Higher scores were indicative of externality, and lower scores were indicative of internality. Test-retest reliability of the scale obtained with a 1-mo. interval was .72, and the internal consistency coeffi cient was .70 (Rotter, 1966 ). In the pres-ent sample, the internal consistency coeffi cient was .71.

Campbell Index of Well-being .— The Campbell Index (1976), which in-cluded nine bipolar adjective items rated on a 7-point scale, was used to measure the participants' subjective well-being (Wang, et al ., 1999). For each item there was a rating scale with anchors 1: Painful and 7: Happy. The fi nal score was equal to the average score of the fi rst eight items plus the score of the last item with weight 1.1; possible scores range between 2.1 (Most unhappy) and 14.7 (Happiest)( Wang, et al ., 1999 ). In the present sample, Cronbach's α was .93.

UCLA Loneliness Scale .— The revised University of California Los An-geles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale ( Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona, 1980 ) was used to measure the participants' loneliness. The revised UCLA Scale contains 10 positive and 10 negative statements about an individual's so-cial relations (e.g., “There is no one I can turn to”). Scores are rated on a 4-point scale with anchors 1: Never and 5: Often. The fi nal loneliness score was the average score of all 20 statements. In the present sample, Cron-bach's α was .90.

Preference for online social interaction (POSI) .— This was measured with four items based on the concept and instrument developed by Caplan (2010 ). Participants rated their agreement with items on a scale with an-chors 1: Strongly disagree and 5: Strongly agree. The scale was translated into Chinese by the authors. The Chinese translation of one of the items was modifi ed, and another item added (Caplan's original scale included three items). The statement “I prefer communicating with people online rather than face-to-face” was modifi ed into two items, “Online social in-teraction is safer for me than face-to-face interaction” and “Online social interaction is more eff ective for me than face-to-face interaction” (trans-lating from Chinese into English). This revised Chinese translation was more closely aligned to Caplan's original instrument and intent. It better


Y. YE & L. LIN170

highlighted the trait of the “cognitive symptom” of preference for online social interaction. Confi rmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the structural validity of the scale. The results supported a one-factor model of this scale with fi t indices [χ 2 /df = 3.89, goodness-of-fi t index (GFI) = 0.99, incremental fi t index (IFI) = 0.98, and normed fi t index (NFI) = 0.97]. In the present sample, Cronbach's α was .80.

RESULTS The most favored online social interaction tools of the Chinese stu-

dents were assessed. Ninety-fi ve percent (249, 95.8%) of the participants used the popular messaging program QQ. WeChat came second (186, 71.5%), followed by Micro-blogging (148, 56.9%), Renren network (118, 45.4%), and Facebook (6, 2.3%). Table 1 shows the means and standard de-viations of the Chinese graduates' scores on the Locus of control, Loneli-ness, Subjective well-being, and adapted POSI scales.

The correlation between these four variables is shown in Table 2 . As ex-pected, there were signifi cant negative correlations between the POSI and Subjective well-being scales, and signifi cant positive correlations between the Loneliness, Locus of control, and POSI scales. Additionally, there were negative relationships between Loneliness, Locus of control, and Subjective well-being scales, and a positive correlation between Loneliness and Locus of control scales. This means that there were positive relations among low well-being, loneliness, external locus of control, and the POSI scale.

Demographic diff erences are shown in Table 2 . There was no statis-tically signifi cant diff erence on scales scores between the students who lived in the cities and those who lived in the countryside, nor between the students who came from one-child families and those who had siblings. There was, however, a signifi cant diff erence in the Loneliness between male and female students, and no signifi cant diff erence on the other three

TABLE 1 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS AND CORRELATION MATRIX FOR LOCUS OF CONTROL, LONELINESS,

SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING, AND PREFERENCE FOR ONLINE SOCIAL INTERACTION (POSI) ( N = 260)

Scale M SD Min. Max.Correlation

1 2 3

Locus of control 10.91 3.91 0 21

Loneliness 2.01 0.52 1 3.50 .30 †

Subjective well-being 10.96 2.10 4.20 14.70 −.30 † −.34 †

POSI 2.78 0.70 1 5 .12 * .20 † −.21 †

* p < .05. † p < .01.



variables. The male students scored higher on Loneliness than female stu-dents ( t 258 = 5.66, p < .001, Cohen's d = 0.79). According to the results of Fish-er's least signifi cant diff erence t test (LSD- t ), the scores of students major-ing in the arts tended toward external Locus of control ( F 2, 257 = 3.45, p < .05, η 2 = 0.03), and they had signifi cantly lower Subjective well-being scores ( F 2, 257 = 6.09, p < .01, η 2 = 0.05) as well as signifi cantly higher POSI scores ( F 2, 257 = 7.64, p < .001, η 2 = 0.06) than did the engineering students.

Using hierarchical multiple regression, the mediating eff ects of the un-dergraduate students' Subjective well-being and Loneliness on POSI scores were tested. Three conditions must be met for mediation ( Baron & Kenny, 1986 ). The results showed that the Locus of control variable explained 9% ( R 2 ) of the variation in Subjective well-being ( F 1, 258 = 25.98, p < .001, β = −0.16), 9% ( R 2 ) of the variation in Loneliness ( F 1, 258 = 25.80, p < .001, β = 0.04), and 2% of the variation in POSI scores ( F 1, 258 = 3.88, p < .05, β = 0.02); Subjective well-being explained 5% ( R 2 ) of the variation in POSI scores ( F 1, 258 = 12.10, p < .01, β = −0.07), and Loneliness explained 4% ( R 2 ) of the variation in POSI scores ( F 1, 258 = 11.19, p < .01, β = 0.27). When paths a and b in Fig. 1 were controlled, the relation between the independent and dependent variables was no lon-ger signifi cant (β = 0.01, p > .05). The mediation eff ects are shown in Figure 2. This means that Loneliness and Subjective well-being had full mediating eff ects between Locus of control and POSI scores.

DISCUSSION This study focused on the factors that might infl uence people's prefer-

ence for online interactions. In particular, the authors examined the role of

TABLE 2 DEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES OF THE FOUR VARIABLES INCLUDING LOCUS OF CONTROL, LONELINESS,

SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING, AND PREFERENCE FOR ONLINE SOCIAL INTERACTION (POSI)

Demographic Variable Description Locus of

Control Loneliness Subjective Well-being POSI

Sex Men 10.70 2.29 11.29 2.76

Women 11.01 1.88 10.80 2.79

t −0.59 5.66 * 1.79 −0.29

Major Art 11.24 1.99 10.69 2.82

Science 10.35 2.24 11.49 2.73

Engineering 9.24 1.80 12.20 2.49

F 2, 257 3.45 ‡ 6.09 † 7.64 * 2.73

Residency City 11.03 1.98 11.03 2.80

Countryside 10.82 2.04 10.89 2.76

t 0.42 −0.87 0.53 0.51 * p < .001. † p < .01. ‡ p < .05.


Y. YE & L. LIN172

locus of control, loneliness, and subjective well-being on Chinese under-graduate students' POSI. The authors' hypotheses were mostly confi rmed.

As proposed in Hypothesis 1, the authors found that there was a posi-tive relationship between the external Locus of control and the POSI. That is, the students who had an external locus of control reported a higher fre-quency of conducting online social interactions compared to those with an internal locus of control. In addition, those with an external locus of con-trol were more lonely and unhappy. These conclusions were similar to the study conducted by Hojat (1982 ) and Karatas and Tagay (2012 ).

As proposed in Hypothesis 2, the authors tested and supported the positive relationship between Loneliness and POSI. Those students who felt lonelier were more likely to prefer online social interactions. In addi-tion, there was a negative relationship between subjective well-being and preference for online social interaction. Those who felt less happy were more likely to prefer online social interactions. Hypothesis 3 was sup-ported. Hypothesis 4 also was supported. Loneliness and subjective well-being had a full mediating eff ect between the relationship of locus of con-trol and preference for online social interaction. These conclusions were also similar to some previous studies. The positive relationship between loneliness and preference for online social interaction has been tested by many studies, including, for instance, Caplan's research (2003 ). Some other research has tested the eff ect of personality on Internet use ( Hamburger &


POSI

Loneliness

Subjectivewell-being

β = 0.02*


POSIβ ' = 0.01

β = 0.04‡

β = –0.16‡

β = 0.19*

β = 0.05*

FIG. 2. The mediating model: results of the hierarchical multiple regression. * p < .05. ‡ p < .001.



Artzi, 2000 ; Nithya & Julius, 2007 ). Yet, this study added to the literature by establishing the mediation eff ect of loneliness and subjective well-being between locus of control and preference for online social interactions.

The present study focused on the relationship between locus of con-trol, loneliness, subjective well-being, and preference for online social in-teraction. In addition, it emphasized the cognitive aspect of preferences for online social interaction behaviors. The results of the study confi rmed earlier studies by Caplan (2005 ) and Morahan-Martin and Schumacher (2000 ) that preference for online social interaction might facilitate prob-lematic Internet use, but extended prior studies in showing connection be-tween locus of control and preference for online social interaction.

The current study is limited in the following ways. The participants were from three universities of one province in China, and there were more female participants than male participants; as such, the results may not be generalizable to populations beyond university students or to peo-ple of other provinces in China or other countries. Future study should in-clude participants from more diverse backgrounds and compare diff erent population profi les. Additionally, this was an exploratory study to exam-ine Chinese undergraduates' preferences for online social interactions and used surveys for data collection. Other methods should be used to under-stand undergraduates' online psychology and behaviors in greater depth. It will be meaningful to explore and construct cognitive-behavior models of people's online social psychology in future studies. Specifi cally, future research could include evaluating 1) the possible cause and eff ect rela-tionships between preference for online social interaction, locus of control, loneliness, and subjective well-being; 2) the relationships between pref-erence for online social interaction and online social network behaviors; 3) comparative studies of diff erent populations; and 4) eff ective designs of online social network systems to help people improve psychological health.

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Accepted December 16 , 2014 .


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