Social support and psychological distress among international students in China: the mediating role of sense of belonging
研究了在华国际学生从中国人和旅居者获得的社会支持如何通过归属感影响心理困扰，发现支持数量和质量的作用不同。
Previous studies have pinpointed that either the quantity or the quality of social support from local people and sojourners plays a pivotal role in enhancing international students’ sense of belonging and reducing their psychological distress while studying abroad. Instead of examining support quantity and quality separately, we integrated them into one study and highlighted international students’ sense of belonging as a key mechanism, offering a more nuanced understanding of how social support from local people and sojourners operated through sense of belonging to influence international students’ psychological distress. Focusing on international students in China, we conducted a cross-sectional survey (N = 232) in 2023 to examine whether social support from the Chinese and sojourners relates to international students’ psychological distress through the mediating role of sense of belonging and the potential interaction effect between support quantity and quality on this sense. The results revealed that both the quantity of socioemotional support and the quality of social support from sojourners were positively associated with international students’ sense of belonging, which in turn negatively impacted their psychological distress. Although instrumental support from the Chinese did not indirectly impact psychological distress through sense of belonging, it directly and negatively affected international students’ psychological distress. However, there was no significant interaction effect between support quantity and quality on sense of belonging. This study contributes to social support research by examining counter-paradigmatic international student mobility to a critical yet under-researched non-Western context and deepening understanding of support quality and sense of belonging within it.