Psychological Well‐Being and Distress Among College Students: The Mediating Role of Resilience as a Dynamic Process

ABSTRACT The collegiate mental health literature reveals a single‐spectrum perspective on mental health, with studies investigating either pathology or wellness. Following a dual‐continua model, this study sought to examine psychological distress and well‐being concurrently, based on a sample of 5670 students recruited from a mid‐sized private university in the United States. Further, informed by a dynamic‐process resilience framework, we tested the mediating effects of resilience between physical exercise, sleep quality, sense of belonging, and friendship and college students’ distress and well‐being. We performed structural equation modeling, which generated a statistically significant model with adequate goodness of fit. The exogenous variables, including physical exercise, sleep quality, sense of belonging, and friendship, each had a significant direct effect on well‐being and distress, with small to moderate magnitude. Resilience partially mediated the effects of the exogenous variables on distress and well‐being. We discussed implications of study findings for counseling practice in the college setting.