Longitudinal Study of Perceived Social Relationships and Sleep Quality 

Beth Foote

Advisor: Jerome Short, PhD, Department of Psychology

Committee Members: Leah Adams and Sarah Nowaczyk

Online Location, https://zoom.us/j/92387731993?pwd=Yg3nM9lazGmzWiyJj2Tkfn9ZlzkSEY.1
July 08, 2025, 01:00 PM to 03:00 PM

Abstract:

Young adults’ social relationships and sleep quality contribute to their overall well-being and health. However, most studies investigating social relationships and sleep are cross-sectional, do not examine diverse young adults since the COVID-19 pandemic, and do not investigate multiple mediators. Through two studies I investigated 529 diverse young adults’ longitudinal relationships between their social relationships and sleep quality after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further I investigated if meaning in life (MIL) and depressive symptoms were mediators of these relationships. For my first study, I investigated students’ loneliness and sleep quality over their four years of college. In my second study, I examined their social support and its relationship to sleep quality with an 8-day ecological momentary assessment study. In study one, I found that while students’ sleep quality varied across the four years of college, my hypothesis that their sleep quality would improve over time was not supported as a no growth model fit the data best. In contrast, fixed linear growth curve models fit best for both students’ loneliness and depression which decreased over time. Further when I investigated meaning in life, I found that a random intercept and slope growth curve fit best for that data over time. Additionally, I found that students’ loneliness predicted next year sleep quality in a unidirectional relationship. However, neither MIL or depressive symptoms mediated the relationship between loneliness and sleep quality across the 4 years as I hypothesized. My study 2 investigated if daily MIL and depressive symptoms mediated the relationship between social support and sleep quality daily. MIL was found to mediate the relationship between social support and sleep quality through its effects on depressive symptoms. These two studies contribute to understanding of the longitudinal relationships between aspects of young adults’ social relationships and their sleep quality and the potential mechanism of increasing MIL in interventions to improve their sleep quality and overall well-being and health.