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Greater University Identification—But not Greater Contact—Leads to More Life Satisfaction: Evidence from a Spanish Longitudinal Study
Author(s) -
Wakefield Juliet R.H.,
Sani Fabio,
Herrera Marina
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
applied psychology: health and well‐being
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.276
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1758-0854
pISSN - 1758-0846
DOI - 10.1111/aphw.12125
Subject(s) - identification (biology) , causality (physics) , reciprocal , psychology , life satisfaction , longitudinal study , social psychology , medicine , philosophy , physics , botany , linguistics , quantum mechanics , biology , pathology
Background A growing body of literature has highlighted the relationship between group identification (a subjective sense of belonging to one's social group, coupled with a subjective sense of commonality with the group's members) and well‐being. However, little of this work is longitudinal, and few studies address reciprocal causality or control for intensity of contact with fellow group members. Method We investigated the effect of university identification on satisfaction with life ( SWL ) over time (and vice versa) in 216 Spanish undergraduates, with seven months between T1 and T2. Results While greater university identification T1 predicted higher SWL T2, SWL T1 did not predict university identification T2. University contact T1 was unrelated to SWL T2. Conclusions These results show that university identification impacts positively on SWL over time (rather than SWL impacting positively on university identification over time), and this is not reducible to the effects exerted by university contact. The implications for those who work with students are discussed.