About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 23. Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

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Because of the intense pressure of academic competition for college entrance, many Asian teens postpone their identity exploration until college. Unlike in the US, due to geographical restrictions, about half of Taiwanese students will continue to live at home after entering college. Leaving home for college may pose a major challenge for late adolescents. The new living experience could change their satisfaction of basic psychological needs (BPNs) in competence, autonomy, and relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2008). Luyckx et al. (2009) demonstrated that the fulfillment of BPNs positively affects identity exploration. Chen and Lay (2024) further demonstrated that years in college moderate this effect. This study attempted to compare how living at home versus leaving home after entering college moderates the relation between satisfaction of basic psychological needs and the breadth and depth of identity exploration across college years among Taiwanese students.

A total of 332 Taiwanese students across different years in college from 15 universities (mean age=20.01 years, SD=1.44, 70.5% female, 48% live at home) filled out the Exploration in Breadth and Exploration in Depth subscales in Dimensions of Identity Development Scale (Luyckx et al., 2008) and the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction Scale (Chen et al., 2015) twice at a six-month interval. Six hierarchical regressions were conducted to examine the moderation effect of living at/leaving home and years in college on the relation between the fulfillment of the three basic psychological needs (Time 1) and the breadth and depth of exploration (Time 2).

After controlling for students’ sex, university ranking, and the main effects of the predictor and moderator variables, the categorical variable of living at/leaving home was found to moderate the interaction effect between college years and the satisfaction of need for competence (p=.03) and the interaction effect between college years and the satisfaction of need for autonomy (p=.04) on Exploration in Depth. Specifically, the satisfaction of need for competence positively predicted in-depth exploration for older college students both living or not living at home (bs = 0.22, 0.43, ps < .05) and for younger students leaving home (b = 0.26, p = .004). Younger college students living at home tended to maintain a relatively high level of Exploration in Depth and not be affected by competence satisfaction (see Figure 1). On the other hand, for students living at home with a lower level of autonomy satisfaction, compared to younger college students, older students were lower in their motivation to explore in depth (p=.05). No moderation effect of living at/leaving home was found in predicting Exploration in Breadth.

This study implied that living at home while first entering college may encourage students to explore in depth, even with low satisfaction in self-competence and autonomy. On the contrary, senior college students who suffered from low satisfaction were less likely to show Exploration in Depth and Breadth if they still lived at home. How the control versus sense of security provided by the families may bring about college students’ exploration is worth further investigation.

Author information

Author	Role
Chen-Yu Lin, National Taiwan University	Presenting author
Keng-Ling Lay, National Taiwan University	Non-presenting author

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