Academic Stress and Aggression. The Moderating Role of Social Support

Abstract

This study aimed to extend the results from the literature and investigate the moderating role of social support in the relationship between students’ academic stress and aggressive behavior. The participants were 149 students, the majority being female (83%), ranging in age from 18 to 47 years. The instruments used were The Academic Stress Questionnaire, The Aggression Questionnaire, and The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Regression analyses indicate that academic stress partially predicts student aggression. More specifically, academic stress determined by personal factors is significantly and positively associated with only two dimensions of aggression, namely anger and hostility, and academic stress related to other people is significantly and positively associated exclusively with hostility. Also, social support does not significantly moderate the relationship between academic stress and aggression. The explanations regarding this inconsistency with the results of previous research cover various aspects such as: the influence of the culture and socio-economic status of the participants' country of origin, the impact of the predominantly Orthodox religion, accommodation with an online learning model as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the autonomous choice of
higher education studies, the educational specialization in the distinct field of social sciences, but also the high percentage of responses from women, most of whom are in the final year of their undegraduate studies.