The Impacts Of Mental Accounting Of Time On Meaning In Life Of College Students

Meaning in life makes individual aware whether life is meaningful and valuable,as well as whether it has clear goals,missions or purposes.In recent years,the mental health of college students has attracted increasing attention from society or academia.Improving meaning in life can fundamentally improve the mental health level of college students.Time is the scale of human life,mental accounting of time is the process through which humans mentally encode,categorize,evaluate,and budget time,and reveals their psychological cognition of time.Many researches have indicate that meaning of life is influenced by various factors such as self-control and social support.Based on this,this study discusses the current situation and relationship of college students’ mental accounting of time,meaning in life,self-control,and social support,to further explore the theory of mental accounting of time,and improve meaning in life of college students.Based on the characteristics of mental accounting,this study rearranges the authoritative questionnaire items and forms the College Students’ Mental Accounting of Time Questionnaire.737 college students were participated by using the College Students’ Mental Accounting of Time Questionnaire,Chinese Meaning of Life Questionnaire,Revised Self-Control Scale,and Social Support Rating Scale.The results are as follows:(1)College students’ mental accounting of time has the characteristics of mental budgeting,loss aversion,and flexibility.(2)College students’ mental accounting of time and its characteristics hava a significant positive predictive effect on meaning in life.(3)Self-control mediates the positive prediction of mental budgeting and flexibility of college students’ mental accounting of time on meaning in life.(4)Social support negatively moderates the positive prediction of meaning in life with loss aversion of college students’ mental accounting of time.