Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
Publication Title
The Career Development Quarterly
Keywords
academic major satisfaction, college students, trait affect, situational affect
Abstract
This study clarifies the role of emotions in determining college students’ satisfaction with their choice of academic major by separating trait affect from situational affect. Students (N = 196) first completed a measure of trait affect administered via an online survey. Two weeks later, on a second survey, they reported the frequency of positive and negative emotions they experienced in major-related classes (i.e., situational affect) and a measure of academic major satisfaction. Emotions experienced in classes were associated with major satisfaction after controlling for trait affect, suggesting satisfaction is not merely a function of disposition. This finding suggests interventions targeting emotions could hold promise as a way to facilitate major satisfaction.
Funding Source
This article was published Open Access thanks to a transformative agreement between Milner Library and Wiley.
Recommended Citation
Nauta, M.M. (2025). Disentangling trait affect from situational affect in the prediction of academic major satisfaction. The Career Development Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1002/cdq.12377
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
DOI
10.1002/cdq.12377
Comments
First published in The Career Development Quarterly (2025): https://doi.org/10.1002/cdq.12377