3.2. Differences in need satisfaction, need frustration and coping (Hypothesis 1)
To test to what extent the different profiles differed in need satisfaction or frustration and coping, we conducted a second MANOVA with cluster membership being the independent variable and need satisfaction, need frustration, adaptive coping, and defensive coping being the dependent variables. The three groups significantly differed Wilk's Λ = 0.875, F(8, 3008) = 26.00, p < 0.01, multivariate η2 = 0.07.
Follow-up ANOVA and post-hoc test, adjusted for inflated type I error risk, revealed that the students in the relatively low social group reported lower need satisfaction than the other two groups in which students did not differ from each other (Table 2 lower panel). Also, in partial support of Hypothesis 1, students in the relatively low popularity group reported significantly less need frustration than the relatively high social group, while the relatively low social group did not differ from the two groups either. A similar pattern existed for coping as students in the relatively low social group reported less adaptive coping than the other two groups. Yet, the latter two groups differed in the defensive coping as students with a relatively low popularity profile reported less defensive coping than students with the relatively high social goal profile. The relatively low popularity and low social goal groups did not differ from each other. Taken together, the group comparisons provided partial support to Hypothesis 1 as the relatively low popularity group did differ from the relatively high social group in need frustration and defensive coping (but not in need satisfaction).