Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Communication Studies

Committee Chair

Alan K. Goodboy

Committee Member

Megan R. Dillow

Committee Member

Matthew M. Martin

Committee Member

Melissa Patchan

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation was to test the extended theoretical model of communal coping (T. Afifi et al., 2020) in a graduate student sample by exploring predictors and outcomes of communal coping processes among 554 graduate students. The extended theoretical model of communal coping specifies that communal coping occurs when individuals within a community—such as graduate students within an academic program—perceive stressors as shared and are willing to take joint action to overcome those stressors. Results of this dissertation provided evidence that graduate students’ academic stress and the severity of individual academic stressors negatively impacted their psychological well-being. The impact of academic stress on the two dimensions of communal coping (shared appraisals and joint action) was not contingent upon the closeness of graduate students’ relationships with their peers. However, graduate students in this sample were more likely to communally cope with their peers in their program when they experienced greater levels of stress and, independently, when they felt close to one or more of their academic peers. This dissertation also hypothesized that communal coping among graduate students would indirectly lead to increased psychological well-being through enhanced self-efficacy to cope with academic stressors, moderated such that the positive effect of communal coping on coping self-efficacy would only exist and become stronger as graduate students showed greater willingness to communicate about their stressors with their peers and, independently, felt efficacious in communicating about their academic stressors with their peers. Results did not provide evidence for this first-stage dual additive moderated mediation model or the unconditional mediation model in which graduate students’ communal coping efforts enhanced psychological well-being through enhanced coping self-efficacy (having removed the moderators). However, results from alternative model testing provided evidence to suggest that graduate students’ communal coping efforts with their peers may benefit their psychological well-being through increased relational connectedness with those in their graduate program, supporting the extended theoretical model of communal coping. Implications for the extended theoretical model of communal coping as well as practical implications are discussed.

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