Academic stress, negative affect, and subjective academic performance: the mediating role of academic exhaustion and the moderating role of the growth mindset of intelligence

Previous work has documented the adverse influences of academic stress on emotional and academic outcomes. However, the mechanism through which academic stress heightens negative affect and jeopardizes academic performance and the boundary conditions of the mechanism have yet to be elucidated. This study endeavors to extend the existing research by scrutinizing a moderated mediation model with academic exhaustion as a mediator and the growth mindset of intelligence (GMI) as a moderator. It was hypothesized that the GMI would buffer the indirect effects of academic stress on elevated negative affect and deteriorated subjective academic performance via increased academic exhaustion. Four hundred eleven undergraduates (62.29% female) aged 18–24 years (M = 19.84, SD = 1.59) from Hong Kong took part in this study. Data collection was conducted via an online survey. The latent moderated structural equations approach was applied to analyze the predicted moderated mediation hypothesis. The results revealed that academic exhaustion significantly mediated the links of academic stress to negative affect and subjective academic performance. The GMI did not significantly moderate the direct effects of academic stress on negative affect and subjective academic performance. However, the GMI significantly buffered the indirect effects of academic stress on negative affect and subjective academic performance via academic exhaustion, as the GMI significantly buffered the effect of academic stress on academic exhaustion. These findings disentangle the mechanism underlying the relationships of academic stress with emotional and academic outcomes and the boundary conditions of the indirect processes. The findings also inform effective strategies to help students encountering academic stress.