Does graduation give rise to increased poignancy? Moderation roles of university identity and emotion regulation

Cross-sectional (Study 1) and longitudinal (Study 2) designs were used to examine the relationship between graduation and poignancy (i.e. feeling both happy and sad at the same time). Participants included college students who completed a short emotion checklist, and measures of university identity and emotion regulation strategies. Students who were about to graduate, experienced a higher level of poignancy than those who were further away from graduation. Yet, university identity and emotion regulation moderated this relationship. Students with a higher level of university identity and those with a lower level of emotional suppression experienced a higher level of poignancy when approaching graduation. These findings not only provide support for the postulate of socioemotional selectivity theory that anticipated endings increase poignancy, but also qualify it in terms of the moderators.