Residential mobility fosters familiarity-seeking : the impact of student exchange programs

• Main Author: Seow, Claire Xiang Mei
• Other Authors: Kenichi Ito
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/70657
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Globalization has encouraged greater possibilities for residential mobility. With the flourishing research on the psychological consequences of residential mobility, surprisingly little is known of how mobile individuals cope with stress, anxiety, and uncertainty and whether such mobile experience leads to adopting familiarity-seeking strategies. The present study is the first to investigate the relationship between residential mobility and familiarity-seeking in the context of student exchange programs. It examined the possible psychological mechanism of familiarity-seeking as a coping strategy for residential mobility. In addition, this study examined the psychological state of anxiety in mediating the relationship between residential mobility and familiarity-seeking. Participants were 33 international exchange undergraduate students (11 males and 22 females) and 32 local undergraduate students (19 male and 13 female) currently enrolled in Singapore universities. They were selectively assigned into two conditions i.e. exchange students and local students. It was hypothesized that exchange students would engage in familiarity-seeking more than local students. In addition, it was hypothesized that the effect of being enrolled in an exchange program on familiarity-seeking would be mediated by anxiety. Results from this experiment showed a significant a negative relationship between residential mobility and familiarity-seeking behavior, contrary to past literature and research. There was no significant mediating effect of anxiety. Implications of the findings, limitations of the current study, and future directions were discussed. Keywords: Residential mobility, student exchange program, familiarity-seeking, anxiety