Supervisor's neuroticism and problematic Internet use among graduate students: the mediating role of supervisor-student relationship quality and the moderating role of fear of the supervisor's negative evaluation.

BACKGROUND: Graduate students exhibit vulnerability to problematic Internet use, which can result in adverse physical, psychological, and social consequences. However, limited studies have addressed this issue among graduate students, and even fewer have explored the unique factors contributing to their problematic Internet use. Therefore, to address this gap, the current study aims to probe the relationship between supervisor's neuroticism and problematic Internet use among graduate students, the mediating effect of the supervisor-student relationship quality, as well as the moderating effect of fear of the supervisor's negative evaluation. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2018 at three universities in Beijing, China. Anonymous data from 448 graduate students were collected regarding problematic Internet use, supervisor's neuroticism, supervisor-student relationship quality, and the fear of the supervisor's negative evaluation. A moderated mediation analysis was performed using Hayes' PROCESS macro (Model 14). RESULTS: Supervisor's neuroticism was positively linked to graduate students' problematic Internet use, supervisor-student relationship quality mediated the linkage, and fear of the supervisor's negative evaluation played a moderating role in the second stage. Specifically, for students lower in fear of the supervisor's negative evaluation, supervisor-student relationship quality negatively predicted students' problematic Internet use. While for the graduate students higher in fear of the supervisor's negative evaluation, supervisor-student relationship quality could not significantly predict students' problematic Internet use. The mediating effect was only significant for graduate students lower in fear of the supervisor's negative evaluation. CONCLUSIONS: This study established a theoretical model linking supervisor's neuroticism to graduate students' problematic Internet use, highlighting the potential roles of supervisor-student relationship quality and fear of the supervisor's negative evaluation. Reducing the neuroticism level of the supervisor, enhancing the quality of the supervisor-student relationship, and mitigating students' fear of the supervisor's negative evaluation will contribute to the reduction of problematic Internet use among graduate students.

Organizational support and task performance: a multiple mediation model.

Objective: Organizational support has been identified as one of the causes for task performance, while previous studies have not adequately explored the underlying mechanisms. Thus, this study aims to reveal the potential mechanisms that linked organizational support to task performance. Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted among the 720 participants from 12 audit firms in Beijing in December 2020. Participants completed anonymous questionnaires assessing their organizational support, task performance, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. Data analysis was conducted with SPSS 26.0. Results: (1) Organizational support was positively associated with task performance, (2) job satisfaction and organizational commitment both mediated the relationship between organizational support and task performance respectively, and (3) the relationship between organizational support and task performance was also serially mediated by job satisfaction and then organizational commitment. Conclusion: Job satisfaction and organizational commitment played a serial multiple mediating role in the association between organizational support and task performance, which provides a potential path for improving task performance.