Direct and indirect associations among self-disclosure skills, social support, and psychosocial outcomes during the transition to college

Abstract

The goal of current study was to explore direct and indirect associations between self-disclosure skills, social support, and psychosocial outcomes during the transition to college. Incoming college students in the U.S. completed online surveys throughout their first academic year. Multilevel mediation analyses revealed different associations among these variables (1) when considering different relational sources of support (family, friend, significant other) and (2) when specifying interindividual (i.e., between-person) versus intraindividual (i.e., within-person) effects across time. Most notably, results indicated that more friend support was associated with better psychosocial outcomes both between and within participants; in comparison, family support was beneficial to both positive and negative psychosocial outcomes when individuals generally had better self-disclosure skills (i.e., between-person effects), and perceived significant other support as a mediator explained positive psychosocial outcomes. These results highlight the importance of considering both intraindividual and interindividual changes, as well as relational context, when exploring how social skills are associated with well-being.