Does fear of terrorism influence psychological adjustment of academic sojourners in Pakistan? Role of state negative affect and emotional support

This study adopted the psychological and emotional perspective of terrorism and the way it influences the psychological adjustment of international students in Pakistan. We investigated the effect of fear of terrorism, state negative affect, and emotional support on students’ psychological distress. Low psychological distress represented higher levels of psychological adjustment. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire from 121 internationals students of 18 different countries enrolled in a public university of Lahore city with a mean age of 21.7 years. A two-stage analysis was conducted by variance-based structural equation modeling technique in SMART PLS 3.2 software. Adequate convergent and discriminant validity of the latent constructs were ensured, and no evidence was found for common method bias. The results of structural model revealed that fear of terrorism is a positive and significant predictor of student’s psychological distress, which is fully mediated by state negative affect. Emotional support was negatively related to psychological distress and moderated the relationship between state negative affect and psychological distress. Conditional process modeling using process macro revealed that emotional support also moderated the indirect effect of fear of terrorism on distress mediated by negative affect. A significant contribution of this research is to investigate fear of terrorism as a stressor in international student’s acculturation research. Negative emotional state plays an intermediary role in relating fear with psychological wellbeing of international students while emotional support can be a potent coping resource. Several implications, limitation and future research recommendations are also discussed.     

Can interethnic contact between majority (Han) and minority (Uyghur) people in China influence sense of Chinese national Community? The role of positive and negative direct,extended and vicarious intergroup contact

ObjectivesIn multiethnic countries, enhancing the sense of community and preventing ethnic segregation represents a major challenge. In this study we aimed to test the effects of different forms of intergroup contact in fostering sense of community among majority and minority ethnic groups in China, by focusing on the sense of the community at the national level.MethodsParticipants were Han (N = 355, ethnic majority group) and Uyghur (N = 546, ethnic minority group) people at a multiethnic university in the Xinjiang province in China.ResultsResults from path analysis revealed that positive direct contact for the minority, and positive extended and vicarious contact for both majority and minority group were indirectly associated with higher sense of Chinese national community via greater focus on positive characteristics of the outgroup. In addition, negative contact (extended contact for the majority; direct contact for the minority) were indirectly associated with lower sense of Chinese national community via reduced focus on positive outgroup characteristics. No evidence was found for negative focus (focus on negative outgroup characteristics) and intergroup threat as mediators. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings for improving intergroup relations in multiethnic and conflictual settings by using multiple forms of intergroup contact are discussed.