Evaluating the Impact of Social Support and Psychological Resilience on Employment Pressure: A Comparative Analysis of PROCESS and SEM Approaches

Abstract

This study evaluates the impact of social support and psychological resilience on employment pressure among recent graduates, with a particular emphasis on the methodological comparison between the PROCESS macro and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) for mediation analysis. A sample of 434 dance major graduates from Changsha Normal University in Hunan, China, was surveyed during the fall semester of 2023. The primary objective was twofold: first, to examine the mediating role of psychological resilience in the relationship between social support and employment pressure; second, to systematically compare the analytical performance, inferential capacity, and interpretive depth of PROCESS and SEM when applied to the same mediation model. Mediation analysis was conducted using both approaches. The results demonstrated that psychological resilience partially mediates the relationship between social support and employment pressure. Both methods yielded models with adequate fit and converged on the substantive conclusions. However, the comparative analysis revealed that SEM offers distinct methodological advantages for estimating mediation models involving latent variables, complex structural frameworks, and second-order constructs, whereas PROCESS provides greater accessibility for simpler, observable-variable mediation models. The findings contribute to the methodological literature by clarifying the conditions under which each approach is preferable and by demonstrating the practical implications of methodological choice for substantive conclusions.