Objective: To investigate the effects of peer trait emotion motives and affect-improving strategies on friendship quality among university students, as well as their interaction mechanism.
Methods: A 2 (trait emotion motive: normative motive, non-normative motive) ×2 (affect-improving strategy: present, absent) within-subject experimental design was employed. A convenience sample of 431 university students from Hunan Province was recruited, and data were collected via an online scenario-based task to examine whether friendship quality under different trait emotion motive conditions was influenced by affect-improving strategies.
Results: The main effect of trait emotion motive was significant, F(1,430)=200.044, p<0.001, η2p=0.318; friendship quality was significantly higher in the non-normative motivation condition than in the normative motivation condition. The main effect of affect-improving strategies was significant, F(1,430)=1 281.837, p<0.001, η2p=0.749; friendship quality was significantly higher when peers employed affect-improving strategies than in scenarios without such strategies. The interaction between the two was significant, F(1,430)=770.190, p<0.001, η2p=0.642. A simple effects analysis revealed that, under non-normative motivation, affect-improving strategies had a stronger positive effect on friendship quality than the absence of such strategies, F(1,430)=1 788.742, p<0.001, η2p=0.806; under normative motivation, the positive effect of affect-improving strategies was weakened, F(1,430)=605.867, p<0.001, η2p=0.585.
Conclusion: Trait emotion motives interact with affect-improving strategies to influence the quality of peer relationships among university students. Affect-improving strategies can effectively enhance the quality of friendship, with their positive effect being greater under non-normative motivational conditions.
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