College Students' Capitalizing/Sharing of Achievements, 2023

Goal of project: To develop an understanding of college students' emotions and sharing behaviors associated with academic achievement across social contexts of differing socioeconomic status (university and family environments). Study 1 examined emotions and sharing behaviors associated with a personally meaningful academic achievement of students' own choosing. Study 2 examined emotions and sharing behaviors in the context of a university-wide achievement: graduating with Latin honors.
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Participants across two studies were undergraduate college students from the University of California, Irvine (UCI).
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Participants were eligible for Study 1 (N = 767) if they were at least 18 years of age and were a current student in at least their second year. Participants were eligible for Study 2 (N = 127) if they were at least 18 years of age, were graduating UCI within the 2022 – 2023 school year (either in Fall 2022, Winter 2023, Spring 2023, or Summer 2023), and were notified that they had received, or were on track to receive, Latin honors (i.e., graduating with cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude) by the time of their recruitment.
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Participants across the two studies were on average 21 years old and most reported being Asian, Latino/a/x/e, or European American (with a few indicating "Other" for their racial/ethnic group).
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Participants across the two studies completed a questionnaire through Qualtrics that consisted of various self-report measures and several questions related to their achievement. Participants in Study 1 were randomized into answering a set of questions in one of two conditions - either about an academic achievement (main interest to study) or about a non-academic achievement (included to examine whether research findings are unique to the type of achievement) of their choosing. Participants in Study 2 answered questions about their Latin honors achievement.
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After answering questions about their achievement, participants across the two studies were asked to report their emotional experiences, including their emotion of gratitude. They reported how much gratitude they feel generally, how much gratitude they felt/feel over their achievement, and how much gratitude they felt/feel when sharing their achievement with other people (i.e., academic peers, family members).
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The Institutional Review Board at the University of California, Irvine deemed Study 1 (#1528) and Study 2 (#1572) exempt.