title: The academic rewards of socially-oriented happiness: Interdependent happiness promotes academic engagement.
abstract: Interdependent happiness has been found to be positively associated with optimal psychological outcomes in collectivist cultures. However, the association between interdependent happiness and key academic outcomes has remained unexplored. The current study examined the association of interdependent happiness with key academic outcomes such as autonomous motivation, engagement, and achievement using both cross-sectional (Study 1) and longitudinal (Study 2) approaches. Study 1 revealed that interdependent happiness positively predicted academic engagement (partly) via autonomous motivation. Study 2 showed that prior interdependent happiness positively predicted subsequent academic engagement even after controlling for autoregressor effects. In addition, reciprocal associations among the key variables were found. Taken together, results of the two studies suggest that interdependent happiness plays an adaptive role in the academic context especially in a collectivist cultural setting. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Division of Learning, Development, and Diversity, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Electronic address: jaddatu@hku.hk.
authors.forename: Jesus Alfonso D
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Datu
authors.affiliation: Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The Education University of Hong Kong , Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Ronnel B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: King
authors.affiliation: Division of Information Technology Studies, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Jana Patricia M
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Valdez
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D012201:Reward; D012574:Schools
keywords: Academic achievement; Academic engagement; Autonomous motivation; Interdependent happiness