Honors College Theses

Publication Date

2025

Major

Psychology (B.S.)

Release Option

Open Access

Faculty Mentor

Karen Z. Naufel

Abstract

In recent years, mental health has been a rising concern among college students (Worsley et al., 2022). One method to mitigate stress and raise levels of mental health is social support, which is support derived from relationships or the environment (Zee & Bolger, 2019). Social support presents in different forms, such as visible social support, or support directly given to and acknowledged by the recipient, and invisible social support, or support indirectly given to and unacknowledged by the recipient. Another method to mitigate stress is belongingness, which is the feeling that one is an intrinsic part of their environment (Hagerty et al., 1992). Previous research shows correlations between using campus resources and higher levels of belongingness (Elkins et al., 2011; Weaver et al., 2020). Though it is known that social support and belongingness can mitigate stress, it is unknown if merely knowing about social support mechanisms, like campus resources and clubs, can change these effects. The present study aimed to test this question. In an online study, students were randomly assigned to either read a list of campus and community resources, a list of campus and community restaurants, or read no list at all. Then, participants completed measures of social support and belongingness at Georgia Southern. The results suggest that knowing about campus resources did not influence feelings of social support and belongingness directly. However, exploratory data analyses are exploring other links among social support and belongingness.

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