Mapping Stress, Anxiety, Depression, and Repetitive Negative Thinking Among Non-Western Undergraduate Students: A Network Analysis

Most studies on stress have primarily focused on Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic samples, which may differ from populations in non-Western countries in terms of how they think and respond to stress. This study investigated the interplay of stress-related variables, including repetitive negative thinking (RNT), neuroticism, mindful awareness, cognitive control, academic or general stress, anxiety, and depression among Indonesian university undergraduates. Network analyses (association, graphical least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (gLASSO), and relative importance network) were conducted to estimate associations between the aforementioned constructs in 474 undergraduate students in Indonesia. Consistent with the association network, the gLASSO network revealed that general stress and anxiety had the strongest partial association. The relative importance network further demonstrated that general stress and anxiety exhibited the most robust bidirectional predictive relationships. Furthermore, general stress, RNT, and depression emerged as the strongest predictors within the network structure. The centrality indices from the gLASSO network (expected influence, strength, and closeness) identified general stress as the most central node in terms of expected influence and strength. Additionally, RNT and depression showed high strength and closeness values. Similarly, in the relative importance network, RNT, depression, and stress showed the highest outstrength and closeness centrality values. These findings suggest that general stress, anxiety, depression, and RNT are interconnected constructs that play crucial roles in the mental health of non-Western students. Further studies are required to investigate interventions for those constructs tailored to undergraduate students.