The experience of Ukrainian students in Slovakia: The mediating role of misleading information between negative emotionality and life satisfaction
The experience of Ukrainian students in Slovakia: The mediating role of misleading information between negative emotionality and life satisfaction

Summary/Abstract: Background: The number of foreign students from Ukraine in Slovakia is rising greatly.This corresponds to the fact that international students are currently the fastest-growing group ofall migrants, including labour migrants, family migrants and refugees (King & Raghuram, 2013;McGill, 2018). Foreign students undergo a process of adaptation which is associated with highlevels of stress and negative experiences in the first year of study. Previous studies havehighlighted a number of problematic areas that students from Ukraine go through during theprocess of adaptation. These include prejudice and being negatively judged by local residents.Although social support is one of the key factors in the adaptation process of internationalstudents, they experience it more from their own community, creating closed groups ofinternational students. This paper aims to explore the relationship between the negativeemotionality of international students and overall life satisfaction. It also wants to verify the role ofinformation distortion - the frequency of bullshitting - in this relationship. This variable representsa strategy whose goal is to avoid unpleasant consequences or to impress other people. Methods:The research was conducted in the second half of 2022 with a sample of 136 Ukrainian students.This makes up about 10% of Ukrainian students studying at the University of Prešov in Slovakia.The Satisfaction with Life scale, Bullshitting Frequency Scale and Big Five Inventory – 2 XS wereused to explore negative emotionality. The mediation analysis was conducted in statisticalsoftware JASP. Results: The Pearson correlation coefficient showed a significant negativerelationship between life satisfaction and negative emotionality. There were also significantpositive relationships found between life satisfaction and frequency of bullshitting as well asbetween negative emotionality and frequency of bullshitting. The results confirmed the mediationaleffect of frequency of bullshitting in the relationship between negative emotionality and lifesatisfaction. Discussion: The results suggest bullshitting as a variable that is related to the copingmechanism of international students during the challenging period of adaptation. Their relationshipto the local group of Slovaks may be marked by distrust in contrast to the strong ties in closedexpatriate communities. Mistrust may be a reason for distorted answers to questions about theirown well-being. The developmental period of adolescence, accompanied by idealisation and a onesidedview of the world, may also play a role. Further research could study information misleadingas a manifestation of dysfunctional coping with negative emotions. At the same time, in theprocess of adaptation of foreign students observe their resilience. Another line of research couldaddress the closedness/openness of international student communities and their correlates. Thepractical implications of the research are directed towards international student counselling andadaptation programs.

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