The Effect of Social Dance on Psychological Distress in University Students: The Unique Mediating Role of Perceived Social Support – A Comparative Study of Three Dance Types
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Abstract
University students’ psychological distress has become a growing concern, highlighting the need for accessible and low-stigma mental health promotion approaches in higher education. This study examined the association between social dance participation and psychological distress among university students and compared three potential mediators: perceived social support, cognitive reappraisal, and basic psychological need satisfaction. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among non-dance majors from five universities in Xianyang, China. Parallel mediation analyses were performed separately for each group using PROCESS Model 4 with 5,000 bootstrap resamples. The results showed that perceived social support was the only significant mediator across all three dance types. Dance participation was associated with lower psychological distress indirectly through perceived social support in social-connection, personal-expression, and mind-body integration dance. The findings identify perceived social support as a robust, common pathway linking social dance participation to reduced psychological distress, and suggest that mind-body integration dance may provide unique psychological benefits. The study contributes to dance psychology and university mental health research by clarifying both shared and type-specific mechanisms of social dance.
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