{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,8]],"date-time":"2026-10-08T16:46:31Z","timestamp":1791477991616,"version":"4.3.4"},"reference-count":44,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,16]],"date-time":"2026-06-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1781568000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychol."],"abstract":"<jats:p>In contemporary China, increasing numbers of Ph.D.-holding corporate professionals and new-generation doctoral-stage participants (Ph.D. candidates or Ph.D. graduates within 1\u20132 years) prioritize university faculty or research posts (\u201creverse mobility\u201d). Prior accounts have focused mainly on economic and institutional push\u2013pull forces; consequently, the psychological and meaning-making processes driving this shift remain under-specified. Accordingly, reverse mobility is conceptualized as a form of setting-seeking, whereby individuals pursue work settings perceived as more restorative, predictable, and boundary-controllable. Using constructivist grounded theory, 47 participants (25 transitioners and 22 new-generation doctoral-stage participants) were interviewed, and iterative open\u2013axial\u2013selective coding with constant comparison and triangulation was conducted until theoretical saturation. Participants depict marketized workplaces as a \u201cperformance competition arena\u201d characterized by KPI-driven value alienation, chronic exhaustion, and anticipatory insecurity. When perceived risk crosses a subjective threshold, psychological safety needs become salient and shift decisions from escape toward shelter seeking. Universities are then symbolically constructed as a \u201cpsychological exemption zone,\u201d namely a perceived work setting that can reduce exposure to marketized performance risks and help restore recovery time, predictability, and control over work\u2013life boundaries. This construction is supported by institutional shelter, time sovereignty, meaningful work, and community belonging. Participants then enact identity reconstruction, narrative management, and boundary work to turn this imagined safer setting into an actual career move and a subjective sense of relocation from one work world to another. Transitioners emphasize restoration after accumulated strain, whereas new-generation doctoral-stage participants foreground preventive risk avoidance. This study develops a dynamic process model integrating need-based mechanisms with risk perceptions, extending reverse-mobility research by foregrounding psychological safety and defensive career strategies.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1785539","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,16]],"date-time":"2026-06-16T05:39:46Z","timestamp":1781588386000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["From \u201cperformance competition arena\u201d to \u201cpsychological exemption zone\u201d: psychological safety mechanisms in reverse mobility"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Peitao","family":"Du","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Al-Farabi Kazakh National University","place":["Almaty, Kazakhstan"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Tingting","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Al-Farabi Kazakh National University","place":["Almaty, Kazakhstan"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xujin","family":"Xian","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Catholic University of Korea","place":["Bucheon, Republic of Korea"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"103957","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jvb.2023.103957","article-title":"Career transitions across the lifespan: A review and research agenda.","volume":"148","author":"Akkermans","year":"2024","journal-title":"J. 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