Future anxiety and psychological wellbeing among sport sciences students: the mediating role of mental toughness and the moderating roles of income level and gender

Abstract

Background Investigating the mechanisms of future anxiety requires a sample exposed to both high career uncertainty and intense performance pressures. Sport sciences students represent a uniquely suited and critical population for this purpose, as their educational context simultaneously demands rigorous physical performance, highly competitive labor conditions, and the management of career-related ambiguities. Therefore, this study focuses on this specific sample to explore how future anxiety is associated with psychological wellbeing and whether mental toughness may serve as a protective mechanism. Methods This cross-sectional observational study examined 423 sport sciences faculty students. Participants completed the Future Anxiety Scale, Mental Toughness Inventory, and Psychological WellBeing Scale. Descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, regression analyses, structural equation modeling, mediation analysis, and moderation analyses were conducted to examine the relationships among future anxiety, mental toughness, psychological wellbeing, gender, and income level. Results Future anxiety was negatively associated with psychological wellbeing (r = –0.378, p < 0.001) and mental toughness (r = –0.340, p < 0.001). Mental toughness was strongly and positively associated with psychological wellbeing (r = 0.770, p < 0.001) and partially mediated the relationship between future anxiety and psychological wellbeing [indirect effect: β = –0.247, 95% CI (–0.186, –0.099)]. Income level significantly moderated the association between future anxiety and psychological wellbeing (interaction β = 0.190, p < 0.001), indicating that the negative effect of future anxiety weakened as income level increased; however, given the highly imbalanced income groups, this finding should be interpreted as exploratory. Multi-group analyses suggested gender differences in some structural path coefficients (Δχ2 = 18.924, p < 0.001); however, the indirect mediation mechanism remained invariant across male and female students (Δχ2 = 0.000). Conclusion Analyses of the measurement sub-dimensions indicate that the “hopelessness about the future” sub-dimension of future anxiety shows a stronger association with the outcomes than “fear of the future.” Hopelessness was associated with the largest negative coefficients for both mental toughness and overall psychological wellbeing. These findings suggest that mental toughness may be a particularly relevant mediator in relation to future-related hopelessness. Pending confirmation through longitudinal or experimental designs, interventions addressing hopelessness may be a useful focus for supporting mental toughness and wellbeing among sport sciences students.