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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

social relationships, scholastic achievement, social environment, perceive stress

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Brandon Q. Jones The Associations between Social Relationships and Scholastic Achievement Faculty Mentor: Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Psychology Any college student could tell you that their social environment influences their scholastic achievement. But what are the factors involved? Do different types of relationships help or hinder our achievement? And in what ways do they help or hinder it? In this experiment, I studied the effects of certain types of social relationships on scholastic achievement by analyzing the degree to which stress and rumination (or time spent thinking about an issue) is associated with these relationships. Originally, I hypothesized that relationships did have an effect, especially ambivalent relationships, (or relationships classified as both positive and negative, like that of a sarcastic roommate); I also hypothesized that these ambivalent relationships had the worst impact on one’s academic achievement, for they cause both stress and rumination, which could interfere with achievement. However, I was not able to gather all of the necessary data concerning social relationships, for I relied on some data collected from a separate project which still is not analyzed. Thus, I wasn’t able to classify the different types of relationships of the participants, nor correlate them with scholastic achievement. My findings until now focus on how stress and rumination associate with academic achievement. They also focus on how students, in general, perceive the effects of their relationships on their academic achievement.

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