Joint Trajectories of Positive Affect and Negative Affect During the College Transition: A Parallel-Process Latent Class Growth Analysis

Positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) are related but distinct dimensions of affective experience during the transition to college. Examining their joint trajectories and the factors associated with these patterns may clarify heterogeneity in affective change during the college transition. This three-wave longitudinal study followed first-year students from two universities in northwestern China over six months (baseline N = 583, initial M age = 18.04, SD = 0.76; 69.6% female). PA and NA were assessed at each wave, whereas internet addiction (IA) and self-concept clarity (SCC) were assessed only at baseline. Parallel-process latent class growth analysis with full-information maximum likelihood identified four joint trajectory classes: Moderate PA–Decreasing NA (47.86%), High PA–Low NA (25.04%), Increasing PA–Decreasing NA (10.63%), and Moderate PA–Increasing NA (16.47%). Relative to the High PA–Low NA class, higher IA was associated with greater odds of membership in each of the other three classes, whereas higher SCC was associated with lower odds of membership in those classes. Contrary to expectation, the association between IA and membership in the Moderate PA–Decreasing NA and Increasing PA–Decreasing NA classes was stronger at higher levels of SCC. These findings reveal heterogeneous affective trajectories during the college transition and underscore the value of considering PA and NA jointly in understanding affective change.