Perceived Stress and Life Satisfaction in College Students: Belonging and Extracurricular Participation as Moderators

This study has two aims. The first was to examine the changes in perceived stress and life satisfaction in terms of college belonging, major belonging, and the participation in extracurricular activities. The second aim was to test the moderating effect of college and major belonging, and extracurricular activities in the relationship between perceived stress and life satisfaction. The participants were 477 undergraduate students at a public university in Turkey. To collect the data, The Perceived Stress Scale, The Satisfaction with Life Scale and a personal information form were used. The results of MANCOVA indicated that the students having a high college and major belonging had low perceived stress and high life satisfaction. In addition, perceived stress and life satisfaction did not change significantly based on whether the students participated in extracurricular activities. However, among the students participating in extracurricular activities, the students who had high college belonging have low perceived stress and more life satisfaction. The results of the hierarchical regression analysis indicated that only college belonging played a moderator role in the relationship between perceived stress and life satisfaction. In conclusion, this study reveals that especially the college belonging is important in terms of stress and life satisfaction in college students. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.