Longitudinal Relations Between Social Relationships and Adolescent Life Satisfaction: The Mediating Roles of Self-compassion and Psychological Resilience

Prior studies have shown that adolescents’ positive relationships with family, teachers, and peers are separately related to higher life satisfaction. However, the underlying mechanisms linking social relationships to life satisfaction and the potential interactive effects of these social relationships on life satisfaction have received less attention. The current study investigated how positive family function, teacher acceptance, and peer acceptance jointly relate to adolescent life satisfaction, and examined two potential mediators linking these social relationships to life satisfaction: self-compassion and psychological resilience. Participants were 803 Chinese adolescents (43.8% female; Mage at Time 1 = 13.15 years) from a two-wave longitudinal study with data spanning 1 year. Adolescents reported on their social relationships (i.e., family function, teacher acceptance, and peer acceptance), self-compassion, psychological resilience, and life satisfaction. The results demonstrate that Time 1 positive family function, teacher acceptance, and peer acceptance were positively related to Time 2 psychological resilience through Time 1 self-compassion. Greater Time 2 psychological resilience, in turn, was positively linked to Time 2 adolescent life satisfaction. The indirect link from peer acceptance to self-compassion to psychological resilience to life satisfaction was stronger when teacher acceptance was higher (vs. lower), as teacher acceptance strengthened the link between peer acceptance and self-compassion. Results suggest that promoting social relationships, self-compassion, and psychological resilience is important in facilitating life satisfaction. Highlights Self-compassion and psychological resilience sequentially mediated the links from positive social relationships to adolescent life satisfaction among Chinese adolescents. The indirect link from peer acceptance to self-compassion to psychological resilience to life satisfaction was stronger when teacher acceptance was higher (vs. lower). Results suggest that promoting social relationships, self-compassion, and psychological resilience is important in facilitating life satisfaction.