Academic stress profiles and bedtime procrastination among college students: the mediating role of rumination and the moderating effect of perceived stress.

BACKGROUND

While academic stress is a recognized predictor of sleep disturbances, traditional variable-centered research often obscures the population heterogeneity within this relationship. Adopting a person-centered perspective, this study identified latent configurations of academic stress among college students and examined the psychological mechanisms linking these profiles to bedtime procrastination (BPS).

METHODS

A sample of 741 Chinese university students completed validated measures of academic stress, rumination dimensions, perceived stress, and BPS. Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was utilized to classify academic stress subtypes. Subsequently, a moderated mediation model was tested to evaluate the parallel mediating roles of two rumination dimensions-symptom rumination and reflection-and the moderating effect of perceived stress.

RESULTS

LPA identified four distinct latent profiles: Pressure-Insensitive (11%), Well-Adapted (32%), Commonly Burdened (45%), and Overwhelmed (12%). The Overwhelmed group exhibited the highest BPS scores (M = 0.325), significantly higher than the Pressure-Insensitive group (M = -0.283). Mediation analysis revealed divergent cognitive pathways: Symptom rumination functioned as a maladaptive mediator that increased BPS (β = 0.24, p = 0.002), whereas reflection acted as an adaptive mediator that buffered the adverse effects (β = -0.22, p < 0.01). Notably, the Overwhelmed profile was the strongest predictor of symptom rumination (β = 1.57, p < 0.001). Furthermore, perceived stress significantly moderated the link between the Commonly Burdened profile and symptom rumination (Interaction B = 0.27, p = 0.009). Simple slope analysis confirmed that this maladaptive pathway was activated only under high levels of perceived stress (Slope = 0.39, p < 0.01) but remained insignificant at low levels.

CONCLUSION

These findings underscore the dual nature of rumination and the "gating" role of subjective appraisal in the stress-sleep relationship. The results suggest that stratified interventions targeting specific cognitive-emotional deficits within different stress profiles are essential for mitigating sleep self-regulation failures among university studencvts.