ATTACHMENT TO GOD AND ADJUSTMENT TO UNIVERSITY: THE SERIAL MEDIATION MODELS OF DOMAIN-SPECIFIC SELF-EFFICACY AND SELF-ESTEEM

Abstract

The main focus of the present study was to examine the serial mediating roles of self-efficacy and self-esteem in the link between attachment to God and adjustment to university. This study adopted a domain-specific approach which focused on academic and social adjustment, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Self-reported data was collected from 298 university freshmen in Singapore through an online questionnaire. Bivariate analysis revealed unexpected findings where the correlation between God attachment and university adjustment in both the academic and social domains were largely non-significant. As for the main analysis, results showed that two out of the four serial mediation models tested were supported. For both academic and social domain, self-efficacy and self-esteem mediated the link between God attachment and university adjustment when self-efficacy preceded self-esteem. A narrower mediation model was also supported where self-efficacy served as the single mediator between God attachment and university adjustment. These findings highlighted the pivotal roles of self-efficacy as a mediator in the attachment-adjustment link. Overall, the study addressed a major knowledge gap by uncovering a serial mediation pathway between God attachment and university adjustment that is specific to the academic and social domains. The limitations, future directions and implications of these findings were discussed.