The relationship between personal growth initiative and college students’ social anxiety: the mediating role of core self-evaluation and social comparison orientation

Social anxiety is a common negative emotional experience that affects college students’ interpersonal communication, hindering the development of their social ability and career growth. As a psychological tendency to actively promote themselves, personal growth initiative plays an important role in college students’ social anxiety. Therefore, based on the theory of positive psychology, this study investigates how personal growth initiative relates to social anxiety and the mediating role of core self-evaluation and social comparison orientation. A total of 772 first- to third-grade students from two public undergraduate colleges in China were recruited via convenience sampling, and SPSS 27.0 and JASP software were used to analyze the data. Personal growth initiative and core self-evaluation were significantly negatively correlated with social anxiety, while social comparison orientation was significantly positively correlated with social anxiety. Bayesian correlation analysis confirmed the results. Core self-evaluation and social comparison orientation played a parallel mediating role between personal growth initiative and social anxiety among college students. The study revealed a negative correlation between personal growth initiative and social anxiety, as well as the mediating role of core self-evaluation and social comparison orientation. These findings expanded previous research and suggested that focusing on cultivating personal growth initiative, improving core self-evaluation, and reasonably guiding college students’ social comparison orientation may help to cope with social anxiety.