The association of social support among correctional personnel in juvenile justice specialized schools with work pressure and negative attitudes toward students: The moderated mediation role of belief in a just world

Drawing on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, this study examined how work pressure, social support and belief in a just world (BJW) relate to negative attitudes toward students in a cross-sectional survey of 231 correctional staff at two specialized schools for juvenile offenders in Fujian Province, China. Work pressure was positively, and social support negatively, associated with negative attitudes, and social support mediated this link. BJW was negatively related to work pressure but not directly to negative attitudes ( β = −0.168, p = 0.053); rather than a direct predictor, it acted as a personal resource attenuating both the direct path and the indirect path through social support. The model explained 39% of the variance in negative attitudes. Within the JD-R framework, BJW can thus be understood as a personal resource that alters how job demands are translated into strain and resource depletion. These findings should, however, be interpreted with caution. The study is preliminary and cross-sectional, and its sample is small and highly specific (231 male staff from two newly established schools in a single province); neither causality nor generalization can be established. Social support was assessed with a single integrated measure covering supervisory, collegial, organizational and familial sources, a methodological limitation that precludes the identification of source-specific effects. The results are best regarded as hypothesis-generating, and future work might test whether strengthening BJW or expanding organizational support reduces negative attitudes in this population.