Page 53 - Never Too Far Away? The Roles of Social Network Sites in Sojourners’ Adjustment

H2. Reciprocally, lower depressive symptoms predicted greater perceived social support, confirming H3. Next, we tested a non-lagged model accounting for the control variables gender and length of stay (Model 2b). Model 2b showed a good fit to the data (χ2(94) = 116.53; p = 0.058; χ2/df = 1.24; RMSEA = .02; CFI = .97; TLI = .96). Chi-square difference test showed that Model 2b without equality constraints (χ2(73) = 94.35; p = 0.047; χ2/df = 1.29; RMSEA = .03; CFI = .97; TLI = .96) was not significantly different from Model 2b with equality constraints (χ2diff = 22.18; dfdiff = 21; p = 0.389); thus, the assumption of constancy of structural effects is warranted. The pattern of results in Model 2b (with control variables) testing was similar to that of Model 2a (see Figure 3). Gender and length of stay were not associated with the main variables. Overall, the effect sizes were small. However, they are similar in magnitude to those found in previous studies (Shakya & Christakis, 2017). Moreover, despite the effects being small, they are statistically significant even in the rather modest sample.
Figure 3. Simplified version of the non-lagged model (Model 2b) presented with the unstandardized
regression coefficients of the statistically significant paths.
Note. ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05, two-tailed; ††p < .01; †p < .05, one-tailed; FtFHos = Face-to-face interaction with the host-country network; FBHos = Facebook interaction with the host-country network. All variables were standardized within waves. For visual clarity, correlations between error terms were not included.
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