How Does Dorm and Roommate Living Impact the Mental Health of Undergraduate Students
Mirela Mendes, Intended Psychology Major, Emory University • June 30, 2026
Starting college often means a lot of change at once. For many undergraduate students, it is my first time sharing a small space with a roommate. With new academic demands and social pressures, it is common for students to struggle with their mental health, which can affect not only their grades, but also their relationships and overall well-being. In this article, Benjamin R. Meagher and Brynn Anderson from the Department of Psychology at Hope College in Holland, MI, explore how the physical college environment relates to undergraduate students’ mental health. A student’s room on campus has many roles. It is a place to sleep, study, socialize, relax, and simply be alone. Even though dorm rooms come with standard furniture, they still offer a chance for students to personalize the space and express themselves, which can support autonomy and a sense of flourishing. However, imagining a certain ambience for a room does not always mean it becomes reality. Structural limitations, social conflicts, or one’s own ability to decorate and organize space can all interfere. This article focuses on the idea that a room that does not support self-regulation and coping may negatively affect students’ psychological needs.
The study examined how students perceive their room’s ambiance and how that perception relates to their well-being. It also looked at how differences between an ideal room and the actual room of ambience may be linked to mental health outcomes such as symptoms of depression and anxiety.
In Study 1, 163 undergraduate students completed a questionnaire about their ideal version of on-campus housing. The ideal space was described as “the space you would want to live in on campus if there was an unlimited amount of time and money to build and personalize it. It is the type of place you would design if you could have anything you want in a room. It fits you like a glove and fulfills your every need.” After this description, participants rated how important certain aspects of the space were, such as relaxation, community, and how inviting it felt, and then were asked whether those same qualities described the feelings their actual rooms created in themselves and in others. The researchers also used established measures to assess depressive and anxiety symptoms, as well as negative and positive effects. Overall, this part of the article focused on whether the idealized version of students’ rooms matched their actual living space, and how that match, or mismatch, influenced their mental health.
The results showed that when students’ ideal versions of their dorms were very different from their actual living spaces, they reported more depressive symptoms and higher negative effects. There was no strong relationship between room ambiance and positive affect. This suggests that dorm rooms may function more as spaces that protect students from negative emotions than as spaces that increase positive experiences.
Study 2 addressed one of the limits of Study 1 by including roommates. In this second study, 75 roommate pairs, or 150 participants in total, completed the same measures used in Study 1. In addition, participants answered questions about their relationship with their roommate and completed the 44-item Big Five Inventory, which assesses extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness. The results of Study 2 were similar to those of Study 1 in terms of the relationship between mental health and the difference between perceived and ideal room ambience. Again, larger gaps between the real room and the ideal one were linked to more negative mental health symptoms. However, there were no significant findings connecting roommate relationship quality to residents’ mental health. This suggests that, in this study, mental health symptoms were more closely related to students’ own perceptions of their environment than to their relationship with their roommate. The study also found that individuals who described their rooms as high in self-expression, uniqueness, creativity, and pride, but low in spirituality, quiet, organization, productivity, and cleanliness, were more likely to report higher rates of negative mental health symptoms.
Overall, these results highlight how important it is for students to have an environment that reflects and supports their needs. Many undergraduate students struggle with their mental health throughout college, and this study suggests that having a room that more closely matches their ideal vision may help protect their psychological well-being. These findings could be helpful for resident staff, who can encourage student residents to make their spaces feel more supportive and comfortable, not just decorated. Colleges might also design programs that invite students to think about their space, such as events focused on room setup, ambience, and personalization, as one more resource for caring for mental health. By recognizing dorm rooms as meaningful psychological spaces, rather than just places to sleep, universities and students can work together to create environments that better support the challenges of college life.
Author:
Mirela Mendes, Intended Psychology Major, Emory University
Editor:
Rebekah Afework, Emory University
Article reviewed:
Meagher, B. R., & Anderson, B. (2023). There’s No Place Like Dorm: Actual–ideal dorm ambiance as a unique predictor of undergraduate mental health. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 37(4), 446–459.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2023.265307
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