Social Cognitive and Cultural Orientation Predictors of Well-Being in Asian American College Students

Abstract

This study examined the predictive utility of Lent and Brown’s social cognitive model of educational and work well-being with a sample of Asian American college students, indexing well-being in terms of academic and social domain satisfaction. In addition, we examined the role of acculturation and enculturation as culture-specific predictors of domain satisfaction. Participants were 122 Asian American college students who completed measures of domain-specific environmental support, self-efficacy, goal progress, and satisfaction, along with global measures of behavioral acculturation and enculturation. Path analyses indicated that the modified social cognitive model, including the two cultural variables, provided good fit to the data and accounted for substantial portions of the variance in academic and social satisfaction. Both acculturation and enculturation were linked to domain satisfaction indirectly through their relation to perceived environmental support. This suggests that students who actively engage both in Asian and in mainstream cultures are more likely to access environmental support, which in turn is linked to self-efficacy, goal progress, and domain satisfaction. The present findings offer preliminary support for the cross-cultural validity of the social cognitive model with Asian American college students and suggest ways in which the model’s variables may operate jointly with culture-specific variables. Implications for future research and practice are considered.