内卷一词原本是社会科学领域的学术用语，最早用来描述在向外扩张的可能性受到严格限制的情况下，内部不断精细化、复杂化的过程，即“没有实际发展的增长”，其内涵随着社会科学领域研究的引用逐渐丰富，近年来由于网络社交平台和自媒体的使用逐渐“出圈”，其含义也发生了较大变化，比起原本对社会现象的解释更侧重于描述个体心理层面的感受。目前心理学领域仍缺乏对内卷一词的统一定义，故本研究通过基于扎根理论的质性研究的方法对内卷概念进行了探索，建构了内卷的概念结构，包括认知和情感两个维度，其中认知维度包括“认为个人投入与个人回报不符”和“认为资源投入与价值产出不符”两个子维度，情感维度包括“感知到的同伴自发行为对自己产生的压力”和“产生负面情绪反应”两个子维度。

Originally an academic term in the social sciences area, the term "involution" was first used to describe the process of continuous internal refinement and complication, i.e. "growth without actual development", while the possibilities of outward expansion are strictly limited. In recent years, due to the use by social network platforms and media, its meaning has changed, focusing more on the psychological aspects of the individual's feelings than the original explanation of social phenomena. As there is still a lack of a unified definition of the term involution in the field of psychology, this study aims to explore and construct the concept of involution through a qualitative research based on grounded theory. The concept of involution consists of a cognitive dimension and an emotional dimension. The cognitive dimension contains “perceived imbalance between efforts and rewards” and “perceived imbalance between input and output”. The emotional dimension contains “perceived pressure from peers’ initiative behaviors” and “negative affects”.