A New Day Begins: How Morning Emotions Shape the Daily Journey of College Freshmen

INTRODUCTION: Morning emotions set the tone for individuals' daily experiences. As college freshmen transition into emerging adulthood, they often face challenges in emotional adaptation while navigating new academic and social environments. However, how morning emotions shape their daily experiences during this developmental transition remains unclear. Integrating the perspective of college adaptation into conservation of resources (COR) theory, we develop a dual-pathway model that concurrently examines psychological and social resources to understand how morning emotions relate to college freshmen's daily prosocial behavior and life satisfaction. METHODS: Across the first academic year, 111 Chinese college freshmen completed five 9-day diary surveys (45 days total), with 57 women (51.35%) and an average age of 18.20 years (SD = 0.71). RESULTS: Morning negative emotions were associated with lower afternoon socializing and higher emotional exhaustion, whereas morning positive emotions showed the opposite pattern. In turn, socializing was positively associated with evening prosocial behavior and life satisfaction, whereas emotional exhaustion was negatively associated with these outcomes. These findings suggest that morning emotions are linked to college freshmen's prosocial behavior and life satisfaction through changes in psychological (emotional exhaustion) and social (socializing) resources. CONCLUSION: This study reveals the role of morning emotions in college freshmen's daily experiences through both psychological and social resource pathways. These findings align with COR theory's resource spirals, where early resource losses contribute to further losses and early gains foster subsequent gains.