Abstract

The current study aimed to examine the moderated mediation effect of social comparison orientation through career exploration on the longitudinal relationship between stress-is-enhancing mindset and career commitment. To this end, a total of two surveys were conducted every six months on 215 college and graduate students, and the collected data were analyzed using SPSS Process Macro. The results of this study were as follows. First, the relationship between the change in stress-is-enhancing mindset and the change in career commitment was fully mediated by the change in career exploration, and gender and grade did not have a significant effect on these relationships. Second, the moderation effect of the change in social comparison orientation was significant in both the relationship between the change in stress-is-enhancing mindset and the change in career exploration, and the relationship between the change in career exploration and the change in career commitment. However, as a result of verifying the significance according to the level of the moderate variable, the moderated effect was not significant in the group with a significant decrease in social comparison orientation. Third, the longitudinal full mediation effect between variables was significant only in the group where the change in social comparison orientation slightly decreased or increased. These results suggest the possibility that social comparison tendencies, which have been mainly treated as risk factors for individual cognition, emotion, and behavior, can act as a resource for the development of vocational identity status if they involve changes in the stress-is-enhancing mindset. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of promoting career exploration for the development of vocational identity status, along with changing the attributes and perspectives of individuals’ stress. Based on the above research results, discussions on social comparison orientation and stress-is-enhancing mindset in the field of career counseling and career education were presented.