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Differential psychological needs fulfillment mediate positive emotions and distinctive positive outcomes among Chinese adolescents

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Abstract

Drawing upon the broaden-and-build model and self-determination theory, the present study examined whether and how the fulfillment of basic psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, & relatedness) might mediate the relationship between positive affectivity and distinctive positive outcomes (i.e., life satisfaction, self-esteem, & academic performance) in a sample of 320 (202 females) Chinese adolescents using a six-months’ prospective design. Results showed that positive affectivity was positively associated with all basic psychological needs and positive outcomes. Furthermore, results obtained from conducting mediation analyses indicated that competence mediated the link between positive affectivity and subsequent levels of self-esteem, while relatedness mediated the link between positive affectivity and subsequent levels of life satisfaction, and autonomy did not emerge as a significant mediator for any of the positive outcomes studied. Overall, the current study integrated the basic psychological needs theory into the framework of the broaden-and-build model, identifying the unique contribution of the needs in the link between positive affectivity and positive outcomes in Chinese adolescents.

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Data Availability

The datasets analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the staff of this project for their unending contributions to this work and the teachers and administrators who made this research possible.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31700978).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Jianjie Xu, Jingyi Shen, Shaoying Zheng & Lijia Liu

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Edward C. Chang, Claire J. Novak, Alaina E. Gregory, Miranda R. Schaffer, Devin B. Ablow, Misu Kwon, Abigael G. Lucas & Olivia D. Chang

  3. Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Yinan Wang

  4. Department of Educational Psychology and School Counseling, Faculty of Education, Beijing, China

    Nan Zhou

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  1. Jianjie Xu
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Contributions

The first to third authors designed the study, performed data interpretation, and prepared and completed the final revision. The remaining authors contributed to data interpretation and critical revisions.

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Correspondence to Edward C. Chang or Yinan Wang.

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Xu, J., Chang, E.C., Novak, C.J. et al. Differential psychological needs fulfillment mediate positive emotions and distinctive positive outcomes among Chinese adolescents. Curr Psychol 42, 496–504 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01472-6

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