The Impact Of Future Self-continuity On College Students’ Academic Investment:Mediator And Moderator

Self-continuity is a vital concept derived from the separation of the self into the past,present and future according to the time latitude.It represents the close connection between the different selves,self-continuity is closely related the people’s mental health and adaptive behavior.The future self-continuity focuses on describing people’s intimate feelings about the present self and the future self.In recent years,researchers have paid more and more attention on the field.Past research has shown that future self-continuity is related to economic behavior,unethical behavior,maladaptive behavior,academic delays,and academic investment.Foreign researchers prevail the field of future self-continuity,and related research is in the ascendant.The basis for the interpretation of behaviors of future self-continuity is still based on a philosophical basis and theoretical interpretation,and lacks corresponding empirical research.At the same time,since the methods of manipulations of future selfcontinuity are still dominated by many reading and writing tasks.In different language environments,such manipulation methods lack proof of the effect of the subjects in the Chinese language context.Are the materials for the relevant research in foreign countries suitable for Chinese university students? Will improving self-continuity in the future enhance their academic investment,and what factors will affect this process? In this study,we first compiled a questionnaire for future self-consistency based on the open questionnaire which is constructed on the warrant and maintenance of self-continuity.Then,the combination of road metaphor and writing task and material reading task are used to initiate the future selfcontinuity of the subjects,and to examine the impact of future self-continuity of college students on academic investment.Based on the framework of Identity-Based Motivation,this study combines the theoretical framework of self-determination theory and promotes the mediating role of identified regulation motivation and the adjustment of self-concept clarity.It uses the experimental method combined with a questionnaire method to pass three horizontal directions.Experiments and a short-term longitudinal experiment examined the impact of future self-continuity on college students’ academic investment and the specific mechanisms.The results of this study found that:(1)Compared with the control group,the experimental group’s future self-continuity and academic investment level are higher,indicating that manipulating future selfcontinuity can effectively affect the academic investment level of the subjects.(2)On the basis of controlling conscientiousness,future self-continuity can still significantly predict the level of academic investment of college students.(3)Identity regulation plays a part in mediating between future self-continuity and academic investment.(4)Self-Conceptual clarity can be a significantly moderator for the relationship between future self-continuity and identified regulation.When the subjects have higher selfconcept clarity,the subject’s future self-continuity can promote their identified regulation more;when the subject has a lower self-conceptual clarity,the effect is relatively weaker.(5)Self-conceptual clarity has no significant regulatory impact on the direct relationship between future self-continuity and academic investment.(6)In one semester,the degree of academic investment of college students can be influenced by future self-continuity from the identified regulation motivation.In summary,future self-continuity can enhance their academic investment level by influencing college students’ identified regulation motivation.Especially when they have a clearer understanding of the present self,improving their self-continuity in the future will give them more opportunities to work hard for their own future,and then generate more investment behavior.However,this effect is relatively weak when the positioning is relatively ambiguous.In the course of a semester,the future self-consistency and selfconcept clarity of the students at the beginning of the period will also affect the strength of the students’ identified regulation at the end of semester and the academic investment level of the whole semester.