Does Happiness in the Cyberspace Promote That in the Real-World?: Testing on Reciprocal Relationships Using Cross-Lagged Structural Equation Modeling

To examine reciprocal relationships between “virtual world†-context cyberspace positive-psychological states (CPSs) and “real world†-context positive-psychological states (PSs), this study conducted a two-wave panel design with about two-semester interval on 251 Taiwan college freshmen and analyzed the data using cross-lagged structural equation modeling. The analytical results show that CPSs have causal priority over PSs, but not vise versa. Therefore, the cyberspace PSs of the former stage influenced the real-world PSs during the latter stage. These results indicate that college students tended to incorporate their cyberspace positive-psychological states into their “real world.†The authors have concluded that cyberspace positive-psychological states do not substitute for and, indeed, contribute to real-world states.

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