The Relationship Between Career Social Support and Employability of College Students: A Moderated Mediation Model

Tiansheng Xia; Honglei Gu; Yamei Huang; Qian Zhu; Yufang Cheng

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00028

The Relationship Between Career Social Support and Employability of College Students: A Moderated Mediation Model

Front Psychol. 2020 Jan 28:11:28. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00028. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Tiansheng Xia¹, Honglei Gu², Yamei Huang³, Qian Zhu⁴, Yufang Cheng⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Art and Design, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China.
² Cognition and Human Behavior Key Laboratory of Hunan Province, Department of Psychology, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China.
³ School of Education, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.
⁴ School of Administrative Law, Northwest University of Political Science and Law, Xi'an, China.
⁵ Continuing Education College, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China.

Abstract

This study examines the underlying mechanism that connects career social support with employability through a survey of 392 Chinese college students. The results showed that career social support had a positive effect on career adaptation and employability of college students, and career adaptation mediated the association between career social support and employability. Furthermore, proactive personality was found to play a moderating role in linking career adaptation and employability. More specifically, higher levels of a proactive personality strengthen the enhancing effect of career adaptation on the employability of college students. Therefore, there was a moderated mediation effect between career social support and employability of college students.

Keywords: career adaptation; career social support; employability; moderated mediation; proactive personality.