The Relationship Between College Students’ Self-Efficacy and Subjective Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Psychological Resilience

Abstract

Using survey responses gathered from 441 university students in China, this study asked whether psychological resilience helps account for the connection linking self-efficacy with subjective well-being. Four instruments were administered: the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE), the brief 10-item form of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Self-efficacy, resilience, and subjective well-being were moderately to strongly correlated (r = .685, .787, and .643, respectively; all p < .01). When resilience was entered into the mediation model, the path running directly from self-efficacy to well-being stayed significant (standardized β = .469, p < .001), while the route through resilience yielded an indirect effect of .514 (95% confidence interval [.250, .777]), corresponding to 31.5% of the overall effect. In other words, students who see themselves as able to cope with study and daily-life demands generally report greater well-being, partly because such students also possess stronger capacity for adaptation and recovery. For university mental health education, the findings highlight the value of combining efficacy-building strategies with resilience-oriented training.