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Associations among academic stress, anxiety, extracurricular participation, and aggression: An examination of the general strain theory in a sample of Chinese adolescents

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Abstract

Academic stress has been proven to have a negative correlation with students’ physical and psychological health. However, the specific mechanisms underlying this relationship among adolescents in mainland China have been rarely investigated. Using a multi-stage cluster random sampling, a total of 552 adolescents were recruited voluntarily to complete the questionnaire survey. Results demonstrated that high academic stress was associated with high level of anxiety, which mediated the relation between academic stress and aggression. Moreover, the mediating effect of anxiety was moderated by extracurricular participation. The specific association between academic stress and anxiety was weaker among adolescents with more extracurricular participation than those with less extracurricular participation. This study contributes to current knowledge by revealing the mechanisms among academic stress, anxiety, extracurricular participation, and adolescents’ aggression. Findings also highlight the importance of extracurricular participation in mitigating the negative effect of academic stress on anxiety.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

Supported by the Social Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. 19JYC005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Chunkai Li & Xiaochun Cheng

  2. Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Xinwen Zhang

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  1. Chunkai Li
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  2. Xinwen Zhang
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  3. Xiaochun Cheng
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Contributions

Chunkai Li: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.

Xinwen Zhang: Writing -original draft, Writing - review & editing.

Xiaochun Cheng: Writing -original draft.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chunkai Li.

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Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in the study were approved by the Survey and Behavioral Research Ethics Committee in the university where the authors are affiliated, and in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent is obtained from all participants in this study.

Conflict of Interest

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Li, C., Zhang, X. & Cheng, X. Associations among academic stress, anxiety, extracurricular participation, and aggression: An examination of the general strain theory in a sample of Chinese adolescents. Curr Psychol 42, 21351–21362 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03204-w

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