Are Agency and Communion in college students’ stories about being admitted to University related with measures of psychological health?
Creators: name: Westberg, Dulce
name: Piff, Paul
name: Dunlop, William
name: Brosnahan, Daniel
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Personality and Social Contexts
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: Psychology
subject: FOS: Psychology

description: Research Questions Past work indicates that motivational themes (e.g., agency, communion) relate positively with indicators of well-being (McLean et al., 2019). For example, Bauer and McAdams (2004) found that the theme of Agency related with greater satisfaction with a life transition and the theme of Communion related positively with general well-being. Additionally, in a review of empirical work, Adler and colleagues (2016) found that motivational themes are strong predictors of well-being over and above dispositional traits. In the present study, we sought to examine how the motivational themes of Agency and Communion in college students’ stories about being admitted to University related with indicators of psychological health. We will operationalize psychological health via self-report measures of positive emotions (Dispositional positive emotion scale; Shiota, Keltner, &amp; John, 2006), meaning in life (Meaning in life scale; Steger, Frazier, Oishi, &amp; Kaler, 2006), and self-esteem (Rosenberg self-esteem scale; Rosenberg, 1965). Agency was coded on a 5-point scale where higher values indicated greater emphasis on self-mastery, independence, and personal control over one’s University acceptance. Communion was coded on a 5-point scale where higher values indicated greater emphasis placed on how social connections and other people were integral to one’s acceptance to University. We will investigate the following research question: (1) Are Agency and Communion positively related with measures of psychological health (i.e., positive emotions, meaning in life, and self-esteem)? Hypotheses: (1) Agency will be positively related with positive emotions and self-esteem (2) Communion will be positively related with positive emotions, meaning in life, and self-esteem Covariates: We will test relations both with and without controlling for the effect of narrative length, gender, age, and ethnicity/race. Sampling Plan We will use existing data collected at the University of California Irvine (UCI) to investigate our hypotheses. 964 UCI students participated in an online survey exploring “how your experiences as a student shape your well-being”. In this survey, students were prompted to respond to the following prompt: Admission to the University of California Irvine is highly competitive, and many people that apply are ultimately turned away. In this study, we are interested in events and factors that, you believe, led to your admission to UCI. Below, please describe each of these events, in chronological order. In addition, please describe how these events are related The authors read through each response to determine that participants provided an appropriate response. Participants that did not provide a response of at least 50 words were not considered. This process resulted in a final sample of 273 UCI students (Mage = 20.48, SD = 3.94; 193 female). Six students identified as Black/African American, 63 as Chicano/Mexican American, 43 as Chinese/Chinese American, 8 as East Indian/Pakistani, 23 as Filipino/Filipino-American, 8 as Japanese/Japanese American, 10 as Korean, 15 as Latino/Other Spanish-American, 1 as Polynesian, 8 as Thai/Other Asian, 33 as Vietnamese, and 50 as White/Caucasian. Analysis Plan We will compute a series of Pearson Bivariate correlations to determine whether there are positive relations between Agency and Communion and indicators of psychological health (positive emotions, self-esteem, and meaning in life).