Academics’ subjective well-being: the role of academic writing anxiety, academic writing block and cognitive appraisal of writing feedback

Recently, universities aspired to attain e a prominent standing in global university rankings have increased pressure on academics to produce high-quality research and publish, which can potentially harm their cognitive appraisals and emotional states related to their academic writing performance, and ultimately overall well-being. This study explored whether experiences related to academic writing affect academics’ subjective well-being. Employing a correlational design, it aimed to assess whether cognitive appraisal of writing feedback, writing anxiety, and writing blocks could predict academics’ subjective well-being. The participants of the study consisted of 260 volunteer academics employed at various non- research public universities in Türkiye, which have recently updated their academic promotion criteria to match the journal ranking system. Results indicated that academics’ cognitive appraisal of writing feedback, academic writing anxiety, and writing blocks negatively predicted their subjective well-being. Findings reveal that despite common issues of writing anxiety and blocks among academics, and the value of cognitive appraisal of writing feedback on well-being confirms the connection between feedback perception and well-being. Literature on academic well-being primarily focuses on workplace stress and often examining single job elements rather than integrated well-being. This research revealed the impact of interactions among variables associated with academic writing on the subjective well-being of academics.