Moderating Role of Personal Values in Relations between Psychological Capital and Academic Adjustment

Abstract

Previous studies suggest that students’ academic success can be improved by maintenance and development of a state-like motivational resource named psychological capital (consisting of hope, self-efficacy, resilience and optimism). The present study examines the stability of this relationship by asking whether Personal Values (trait-like) are a context variable that modifies the relation between psychological capital and academic adjustment. More specifically, we argue that the openness-to-change value represents a context which moderates the relationship between psychological capital and students’ academic adjustment. We hypothesize that the positive relationship between psychological capital and academic adjustment is stronger in individuals who score lower on the openness-to-change value. The study sample was 160 students: their examination results fully support the proposed hypotheses. The findings suggest students with a reduced sense of autonomy, self-direction, and independence can rely on situational psychological resources to promote their academic adjustment. However ‘hope’ did not exhibit the same interaction effect with openness to change. This finding indicates that the positive relation between hope and academic adjustment did not differ across students with a low versus a high openness-to-change value. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.