A longitudinal study on the role of social axioms in Chinese university students' psychological well-being

As a set of fundamental beliefs that underlie social attitudes and behaviors, social axioms (i.e., social cynicism, fate control, reward for application, religiosity, and social complexity) play a central role in how individuals maintain self-esteem and life satisfaction when encountering challenges and adversities in the social world. Existing knowledge regarding the impact of social axioms on psychological well-being is inconclusive, and there is a lack of longitudinal research to investigate whether social axioms are associated with psychological well-being over time. Most previous studies focused on the influence of social axioms on cognitive aspects of well-being (e.g., life purpose and self-esteem), but the affective aspects (i.e., positive and negative feelings) have been seldom investigated. To address this research gap, we conducted a two-wave survey among 333 Chinese university students and found that the baseline social axioms predicted the follow-up psychological well-being. Social cynicism was negatively related to flourishing and positive feelings, and positively related to negative feelings. Fate control was positively related to flourishing and positive feelings. Gender played a moderating role between social cynicism and flourishing. The findings gain our understanding of how social axioms affect psychological well-being over time and inspire new ideas for emotion regulation and well-being promotion.