Examining the Relationship between Social Class and Well-Being in Chinese Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Basic Psychological Needs

Abstract

Considerable evidence has shown that social class has a positive relationship with well-being. However, little research has examined this connection in detail, particularly as it relates to the context of adolescence. The present study builds on the framework of Self-Determination Theory, to delineate the psychological mechanism underlying this relationship in adolescents. Study 1 explored the correlation between objective social class and hedonic well-being with national adolescent data (n = 944) from the China Family Panel Studies. The results showed that objective social class was positively correlated with hedonic well-being. Study 2 more fully examined the correlation and potential mechanism of the relationship between social class and hedonic/eudaimonic well-being among 625 adolescents. The results confirmed that social class is correlated with hedonic/eudaimonic well-being and that basic psychological needs satisfaction (BPNS) fully mediates the relationships between them. These findings emphasize the role of BPNS in this relationship among adolescents.

Keywords

social class hedonic well-being eudaimonic well-being basic psychological needs satisfaction adolescents

Introduction

Social class plays an important role in adolescent behavioral/emotional outcomes and well-being (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2013; Shek & Liu, 2013). This is particularly the case given that adolescence is a critical stage in one’s life (Russo-Netzer & Shoshani, 2020) and that social class has an effect on individuals’ development from birth to adulthood (Egmond et al., 2017; Rizzo & Killen, 2018). A number of studies have focused on adolescent well-being and explored the relationship between social class and well-being among adolescents (Sweeting & Hunt, 2014; Varga et al., 2014), yet relatively few studies have paid attention to the underlying processes of this relationship (Addae, 2020; Yu & Blader, 2020; Zou et al., 2018). Investigating the potential mechanism of this relationship would enrich our understanding of both social class and well-being during the developmental stage of adolescence, and could provide guidelines to improve the development and social adaptation of adolescents from disadvantaged social classes.

Social class influences many aspects of people’s lives, from psychological and physiological functioning to social interactions (Adler et al., 2000). A considerable number of studies have found that social class is positively correlated with well-being (Ng & Diener, 2014; Piff & Moskowitz, 2018). This positive relationship is reasonable given that higher social class is associated with several desirable outcomes, such as reduced health impairment (Biship et al., 2006), better family functioning (Botha et al., 2017), and increased life expectancy (Montez & Hayward, 2014), while lower social class is associated with the opposite outcomes (Manuel et al., 2020). Previous studies have confirmed the predictive effect of both objective and subjective social class on well-being during adolescence and young adulthood (Wilkinson & Andersson, 2018). For example, a twin difference longitudinal cohort study found that subjective social class is correlated with multiple indicators of well-being such as depression in late adolescence (Rivenbark et al., 2020). However, little research has explored the potential mechanism behind this relationship.

The intent of this study was to fully delineate the relationship between social class and well-being. First, we intended to capture a more complete picture of adolescent well-being. Well-being can be divided into two forms: hedonic well-being and eudaimonic well-being. Hedonic well-being is defined as pleasure attainment and pain avoidance, while eudaimonic well-being is focused on meaning and self-actualization (Ryan & Deci, 2001). Only a few studies have explored both forms of well-being simultaneously (Anderson & Fowers, 2019; Howell & Buro, 2015). By including both forms of well-being in the current study, we hoped to provide a better understanding of the relationship between social class and well-being. In addition, social class can be divided into objective social class (education, income, and occupation) and subjective social class (social class as perceived by others), and each may have a different effect on psychological functions (Haught et al., 2015). For example, previous work has found that subjective social class has a stronger effect on hedonic well-being than does objective social class (Anderson et al., 2012). In this study, we examined both objective and subjective social class.

Basic Psychological Needs as a Mediator

The aim of this study was to fully explore the potential mechanisms underlying the relationships between objective/subjective social class and hedonistic/eudaimonic well-being. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2017) was adopted as the framework for this study. SDT proposes that humans require the fulfillment of three basic psychological needs to achieve psychological growth and well-being: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy concerns the experience of integration and freedom. Competence is the ability to affect the environment and to attain valued outcomes. Relatedness refers to the desire to feel connected to others. People are likely to thrive in settings that fit well with their basic psychological needs (Eccles & Roeser, 2011; Tian et al., 2014a). Building on SDT, we hypothesized that adolescents with higher social class would have access to more material and social resources to fit their basic psychological needs satisfaction (BPNS), which is in turn associated with their well-being.

Although there is no direct evidence, one can deduce from the available evidence that social class is positively related to BPNS. For example, the Gallup world poll found that social class is closely associated with an increased sense of personal control and higher autonomy (Ng & Diener, 2014). Moreover, Jordan and Levine (2009) found that children from disadvantaged families perform substantially worse in number competence than their counterparts from higher-income families, suggesting that social class is an important factor in children’s competence. In addition, a previous study found that social capital (family sense of belonging, family autonomy support, and family control) is a significant mechanism through which social class impacts the well-being of adolescents (Addae, 2020). Taken together, these results indicate that adolescents from higher social class families should be expected to have higher psychological needs satisfaction.

According to SDT, BPNS is positively correlated with people’s well-being (Deci & Ryan, 2000). In support of this view, considerable evidence has shown that BPNS enhances positive mood (Reis et al., 2000), mental health, life satisfaction (Kwok et al., 2012), daily well-being (Sheldon et al., 1996), and meaning of life (Molix & Nichols, 2013). Experimental research has found that BPNS covaries reliably with subjective well-being (Mouratidis et al., 2011) and a longitudinal study has also found significant bidirectional longitudinal relationships between BPNS and school satisfaction (Tian et al., 2014a).

In addition, SDT has been found to be stable and universal under different cultural backgrounds (Tang et al., 2020), and it has been applied to China in many studies (Zhou et al., 2019, 2020). Together, building on SDT and previous work, we predicted that adolescents with higher psychological needs satisfaction would tend to have more positive experiences (hedonic well-being) and more meaningful lives (eudaimonic well-being).

The Present Research

To reveal the potential psychological mechanisms underlying the relationships between objective/subjective social class and hedonic/eudaimonic well-being, we investigated the associations between these factors in adolescents and tested the mediating role of BPNS. In Study 1, we explored the relationship between objective social class and hedonic well-being with a nationwide and comprehensive adolescent sample from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). Second, working from the basis of SDT, we moved forward to explore the mediating role of BPNS in the relationships between social class and hedonic/eudaimonic well-being with a convenient adolescent sample in Study 2.

Study 1: The Correlation between Social Class and Hedonic Well-Being: Evidence from National Data

Method

Data and participants

The sample was drawn from CFPS, which is a nationwide and comprehensive social survey covering 25 provinces in China. The CFPS used multistage probability proportional to size sampling (PPS) with implicit stratification to represent 95% of the total population of mainland China (Xie & Hu, 2014). The CFPS collected extensive information through computer-assisted person-to-person interviews of all family members. We used the 2016 wave since it is the latest wave that contains information on family relations. Based on the 2014 sample, the tracing rate in 2016 was 89 percent at the household level and 82% at the individual level. Our sample was limited to adolescents between the ages of 10 and 15 years, giving a total of 2583 observations. After excluding observations with missing information on well-being (the number of deletions: 1446) and socioeconomic variables (the number of deletions: 193), the current study yielded 944 cases (M_age = 11.02 ± 1.19, 44.6% female) for our analysis.

Measures

Objective social class

We measured objective social class based on per capita household net income, education levels, and Treiman’s SIOPC of parents, all as provided by the CFPS, on the grounds that combining these data provided a better representation of objective social class than any one of them alone (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002). Per capita household net income was obtained by dividing adjusted household net income by household size. Education levels were measured by indicating the highest level of school which the parents had completed (1 = Illiterate/semiliterate to 7 = doctoral degree). The CFPS originally classified the occupation of the parents by the Chinese Standard Classification of Occupations (CSCO), and then converted these ratings to the International Standard Classification of Occupation (ISCO-88) and used this to establish Treiman’s SIOPC ratings; the latter were used in this study. Following prior research (Kraus et al., 2011; Yu & Blader, 2020), objective social class was obtained by averaging the standardized values of these three indicators.

Hedonic well-being

Hedonic well-being was measured by one item in the CFPS. Adolescents were asked to rate from 0 (the lowest score) to 10 (the highest score) their response to the question “Are you happy?.”

Control variables

Following prior research (Di Domenico & Fournier, 2014), age and gender were regarded as control variables.

Analytic technique

We used SPSS 24.0 to conduct the hierarchical regression analysis to determine the importance of objective social class to hedonic well-being. We predicted hedonic well-being with objective social class as an independent variable, and age and gender entered as control variables. Demographic variables (age and gender) were entered as the initial block of control variables. Objective social class was then entered as the second block of predictor variables.

Results

The results revealed that objective social class positively predicted hedonic well-being (B = 0.19, p < .001). The overall model accounted for 4.9% of the variance in hedonic well-being. Notably, the second block of variables accounted for a significant increment in the variance (ΔR² = 0.02, p < .001). The results demonstrated that objective social class yielded significant contributions to the prediction of hedonic well-being (see Table 1).

Table 1.

The Hierarchical Regression of Hedonic Well-Being on Objective Social Class.

	B	SE	β	R ²	ΔR ²
Step 1				0.03***	0.03***
Intercept	1.17	0.30
Gender	−0.21**	0.07	−0.11**
Age	−0.10***	0.03	−0.11***
Step 2				0.04***	0.02***
Intercept	1.18	0.30
Gender	−0.21**	0.06	−0.10**
Age	–0.10***	0.03	–0.12***
Objective social class	0.19***	0.05	0.13***

Note. Gender was coded such that 0 = female and 1 = male.

**p < .01. ***p < .001.

Discussion

The results from a national adolescent sample showed that objective social class is positively associated with adolescent hedonic well-being when holding other variables constant; these results are consistent with our hypothesis (B = 0.19, p < .001). However, we found that objective social class showed limited effect sizes in predicting hedonic well-being. The relatively small effect might be due to an incomplete index of social class. In Study 1, we only examined objective social class rather than subjective social class. However, previous work has suggested that subjective social class matters more to subjective well-being than does objective social class (Anderson et al., 2012). Thus, Study 2 examined both objective and subjective social class. Moreover, the measure of hedonic well-being was also limited by including only one item. Thus, Study 2 assessed hedonic well-being with more valid scales using multiple items and was also extended to eudaimonic well-being. More importantly, the mechanism underlying the relationship is still unknown. Therefore, Study 2 addressed the shortcomings of Study 1, and additionally examined the potential mechanism in the relationship between social class and well-being among adolescents.

Study 2: The Potential Mechanisms of the Relationships between Social Class and Hedonic/Eudaimonic Well-Being

Method

Data and participants

This study used a convenience sample composed of 625 students (49.3% males) from four high schools in China, including 172 from 10th grade and 453 from 11th grade. The age of the adolescents ranged from 14 to 18 (M = 16.15, SD = 0.84). Participants completed a multi-section questionnaire in a quiet classroom environment. The participants completed all measures anonymously to ensure the authenticity and validity of the responses. It took participants approximately 10 minutes to complete all the measures. Each participant volunteered to participate in this study, and informed consent was obtained from all participants. The study was approved by the university’s Ethical Committee for Scientific Research.

Measures

Objective social class

In this study, objective social class was assessed by three measures: income, education, and occupation of parents. Specifically, participants were asked to indicate their household income over the previous year (1 = Less than RMB 5,000 to 6 = RMB 100,000 or more), the highest grade of school which their parents had completed (1 = primary school/below to 6 = post-graduate degrees), and the occupation of their parents (1 = jobless to 10 = administrative staff). Following prior studies (Kraus et al., 2011; Yu & Blader, 2020), objective social class was measured by averaging the standardized values of these three indicators.

Subjective social class

Subjective social class was measured by the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Socioeconomic Status (Adler et al., 2000). Participants were given a graph with a 10-rung ladder representing the position of a family in China. The top rung represents the highest social class position, and the bottom rung represents the lowest social class position, according to family income, education, and occupation in China. Participants evaluated their family social class by choosing the most suitable rung from the graph.

Basic psychological needs satisfaction

BPNS was assessed by the Adolescent Students’ Basic Psychological Needs at School Scale (Tian et al., 2014b). The scale consists of 15 items, including three subscales measuring autonomy (e.g., “I can decide for myself how to do things at school”), competence (e.g., “I have been able to learn interesting new skills at school recently”), and relatedness (e.g., “Teachers and classmates are pretty friendly toward me at school”). Responses to this scale ranged from 1 = strongly disagree to 6 = strongly agree. In our study, this scale showed good reliability (α = 0.86).

Hedonic well-being

Hedonic well-being was measured by the positive feeling subscale of the Scales of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) (Diener et al., 2010) and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) (Diener et al., 1985). The SPANE contains 12 items, including the positive feelings subscale (e.g., “Contented”) and the negative feelings subscale (e.g., “Unpleasant”). Responses to each item ranged from 1 = very slightly to 5 = extremely. The SPANE has shown good validity and reliability in use with adolescent populations (Prado-Gascó et al., 2020). The Cronbach’s α for the positive feelings subscale was 0.85 in this study. The SWLS measures the cognitive evaluation of one’s life (e.g., “I am satisfied with my life”). It contains five items and responses range from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. The SWLS was found to have adequate reliability in this study (α = 0.79). Following prior research (Anderson & Fowers, 2019), hedonic well-being was calculated by averaging the standardized values of the SWLS and the positive feelings subscale of the SPANE.

Eudaimonic well-being

Eudaimonic well-being was assessed by the Flourishing Scale (FS) (Diener et al., 2010), which has been found to be suitable for use in the Chinese adolescent context (Duan & Xie, 2016). Participants rate eight items from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. A sample item is, “I lead a purposeful and meaningful life.” The Cronbach’s α for the FS was 0.86 in this study.

Control variable

Given that prior research has indicated that gender and age might impact well-being (Di Domenico & Fournier, 2014), we included those variables as control variables.

Analytic technique

We used SPSS 24.0 and AMOS 22.0 to perform statistical analyses, including preliminary descriptive analysis, Pearson correlations analysis, hierarchical regression analysis, and path analyses.

Results

Descriptive statistics of the variables

Descriptive results are listed in Table 2. The results show that there are positive correlations among objective social class, subjective social class, BPNS, hedonic well-being, and eudaimonic well-being in adolescent students (ps < .01).

Table 2.

Correlation Matrix for All Observed Variables.

	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5
1. Objective social class	0	0.87	1
2. Subjective social class	4.56	1.70	0.65**	1
3. BPNS	4.30	0.73	0.35**	0.35**	1
4. Hedonic well-being	0	2.41	0.23**	0.26**	0.64**	1
5. Eudaimonic well-being	4.91	1.03	0.30**	0.35**	0.70**	0.69**	1

Note. BPNS = basic psychological needs satisfaction.

p < .01.

Hierarchical regression analysis of the predictors of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being

To determine the importance of social class to adolescents’ hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, we conducted hierarchical regression analysis on both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, respectively. Identical to study 1, demographic variables (including gender and age) were entered as the initial block of control variables. Next, objective social class and subjective social class were entered as the second block of predictor variables. The results are shown in Table 3.

Table 3.

The Hierarchical Regression of Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being on Objective and Subjective Social Class.

	Hedonic well-being					Eudaimonic well-being
	B	SE	β	R ²	ΔR ²	B	SE	β	R ²	ΔR ²
Step 1				0.02**	0.02**				0.05***	0.05***
Intercept	5.07*	1.83				4.35***	0.76
Gender	0.31	0.19	0.07			−0.07	0.08	−0.04
Age	−0.34**	0.11	0.12**			−0.26***	0.05	−0.23***
Step 2				0.08***	0.06***				0.14***	0.09***
Intercept	−0.25	2.01				2.16**	0.79
Gender	0.44*	0.18	0.10*			−0.01	0.07	−0.01
Age	−0.06	0.12	−0.02			0.09	0.05	0.09
Objective social class	0.28*	0.12	0.12*			0.26***	0.05	0.26***
Subjective social class	0.43**	0.12	0.18**

Note. Gender was coded such that 1 = male and 2 = female.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Overall, for both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, the step in which objective and subjective social class were added to the analysis accounted for the most variance, although gender and age were added as control variables. The results show that objective social class significantly predicts hedonic well-being (B = 0.28, p < .05) and marginally significantly predicts eudaimonic well-being (B = 0.09, p = .07). Subjective social class also positively predicts both hedonic well-being (B = 0.43, p < 0.01) and eudaimonic well-being (B = 0.26, p < .001).

Structural model

The measurement model included four latent variables (social class, BPNS, hedonic well-being, and eudaimonic well-being) and nine observed variables. The latent social class variable was described as objective social class and subjective social class. The latent BPNS variable was described by autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The latent hedonic well-being variables were described by positive feelings and life satisfaction. The latent eudaimonic well-being variables were described by EW1 (M _{odd items of FS}) and EW2 (M _{even items of FS}), which were two parcels derived from item parceling based on a random algorithm (Matsunaga, 2008). We tested a model in which social class was specified as a predictor of BPNS, and BPNS was in turn specified as a predictor of hedonic/eudaimonic well-being. This model further featured direct predictive paths from social class to hedonic/eudaimonic well-being. Age and gender were taken as control variables.

Path analyses were carried out using the bootstrapping method with 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals and 5000 bootstrapped samples. Thresholds for good and acceptable fit values were defined as follows: acceptable fit is provided by a model when NFI ≥ 0.90, CFI ≥ 0.95, GFI ≥ 0.90, RMSEA ≤ 0.08, and SRMR ≤ 0.10, and a good fit is provided when 0.95 ≤ NFI ≤ 1.00, 0.97 ≤ CFI ≤ 1.00, 0.95 ≤ GFI ≤ 1.00, 0 ≤ RMSEA ≤ .05, and 0 ≤ SRMR ≤ .05 (Schermelleh-Engel & Moosbrugger, 2003).

The model examined the associations between social class, BPNS, and hedonic/eudaimonic well-being, and exhibited good fit with χ² (22) = 105.64, NFI = 0.96, CFI = 0.97, GFI = 0.97, RMSEA = 0.08, and SRMR = 0.03. The results showed that social class has a significant positive indirect effect on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being through BPNS. The significance testing results showed that the indirect effect was significant (social class →BPNS →hedonic well-being: β = 0.50, SE = 0.06, p < 0.001, 95%CI [0.41, 0.60]; social class →BPNS →eudaimonic well-being: β = 0.47, SE = 0.05, p < 0.001, 95%CI [0.38, 0.56]), and the direct effect between social class and hedonic well-being was not significant (β = −0.04, SE = 0.06, p = 0.38, 95%CI [−0.15, 0.06]), indicating a complete mediation by BPNS. Similarly, the direct effect between social class and eudaimonic well-being was not significant (β = −0.02, SE = 0.06, p = 0.66, 95%CI [−0.12, 0.08]), which also indicates a complete mediation by BPNS. Figure 1 shows the results of the path model analysis.

Figure 1.

SEM results of the hypothesized path model.

Discussion

In Study 2, we explored the relationships between objective/subjective social class and hedonic/eudaimonic well-being and tested a conceptual model with BPNS as a mediating variable. We found positive effects of objective social class on hedonic well-being, replicating the result from Study 1. Furthermore, we found that the effect of both objective and subjective social class on hedonic well-being is bigger than that of objective social class alone. More importantly, consistent with our hypothesis and SDT, we found that BPNS fully mediates the relationships between social class and hedonic/eudaimonic well-being, which may indicate that adolescents from higher social classes will have higher BPNS, leading to a higher level of pleasure and a more meaningful life.

General Discussion

This study aimed to examine the relationships between objective/subjective social class and hedonic/eudaimonic well-being, and whether BPNS acted as a mediator in these relationships. Study 1 used a national adolescent sample and found that objective social class is positively correlated with adolescents’ hedonic well-being when other variables are held constant. Study 2 used another, independent sample and found that both adolescent objective and subjective social class are positively correlated with hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. More importantly, we found that BPNS fully mediates the relationships between social class and hedonic/eudaimonic well-being. These results are consistent with both SDT and previous studies (Gonzalez et al., 2016).

One of our major results was the finding that social class is positively associated with hedonic and eudaimonic well-being among adolescents. Consistent with the results of a prior study, social class was found to only weakly predict individuals’ hedonic well-being (Anderson et al., 2012). For example, according to a meta-analysis, the correlation between social class and well-being within developing economies is approximately 0.20 (Howell & Howell, 2008). However, we cannot ignore the positive nature of the relationship between social class and well-being. Previous studies have focused on the relationship between social class and hedonic well-being, for example, emotional distress (Destin et al., 2012), positive affect, and life satisfaction (Yu & Blader, 2020), but ignored the relationship between social class and eudaimonic well-being, which is characterized by the meaningful life. The current study moves one step forward in finding the positive relationship between objective/subjective social class and eudaimonic well-being. Adolescents from higher social classes were found to be likely to have higher eudaimonic well-being and to lead more meaningful lives, not simply to have higher positive experiences and life satisfaction. These findings emphasize the significance of social class as a fundamental factor to well-being, in agreement with previous studies (Chitchai et al., 2018).

Another major finding of our study was the discovery of the important role of BPNS in the mechanism underlying this relationship, confirming and extending SDT. Specifically, we found that adolescents from higher social class families are more likely to experience BPNS, and this is in turn associated with higher hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, in accordance with SDT (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Past studies have focused on the mediating effect of self-esteem (Chen et al., 2016), optimism (Zou et al., 2018), love of money (Chitchai et al., 2018), and status (Yu & Blader, 2020) but did not introduce BPNS into the relationship between social class and well-being. The present research provides a new perspective on understanding this relationship.

Based on SDT, we explained why higher social class was associated with higher hedonic and eudaimonic well-being among adolescents. Previous research has indicated that the higher the students’ social class, the less authoritarian they reported their parents to be (Rubin & Kelly, 2015). Moreover, children’s feelings of school competence are positively correlated with perceptions of parents’ work (Moorehouse & Sanders, 1992). In addition, compared to the middle-class, working-class parenting styles might inhibit the development of socially supportive friendships that protect against mental health problems (Rubin & Kelly, 2015). This research might suggest that adolescents from higher social class families will have more BPNS (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness), and this is in turn associated with hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. The identification of this mediation model not only furthers our understanding as to why higher social class is associated with higher hedonic and eudaimonic well-being for adolescents, but also contributes to the literature on individual-level antecedents for well-being. What’s more, it may have practical implications for adolescents from a disadvantaged social class. We could emphasize increasing adolescent well-being and eliminating the negative effects of disadvantaged social class by satisfying basic psychological needs among adolescents.

Limitations and Further Research Directions

Although the current study provided some new information for our understanding of social class and well-being, several limitations and future directions needed to be considered. First, the present study relied on cross-sectional data. It would be preferable to use longitudinal data in the future to confirm the causal relationships among social class, BPNS, and hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Second, in Study 1, many cases from the CFPS were not included in the final analysis due to missing data, which might lead to inaccurate results if the sample is not truly representative of national conditions. Thus, more studies using a more representative sample are needed to replicate the results of Study 1 in the future. Third, the recruitment of adolescents through convenience sampling might impair the generalizability of the findings of Study 2. It is unclear whether these findings could be generalized to other populations within the Chinese context. Future studies would be necessary to test the stability of the current model across different populations and contexts. Fourth, the measure of objective social class in Study 2 was dependent only on the perceptions of students, rather than on precise reports. This may result in imprecise measurement of objective social class. Fifth, we could not provide information about the comparison of characteristics between the four high schools in Study 2, such as age, gender, social class, and so on because we did not record the school information in our data. Last but not least, future research could explore whether psychological interventions aimed at increasing BPNS could play a part in promoting hedonic and eudaimonic well-being (Gillison et al., 2019), especially for adolescents from disadvantaged families.

Conclusion

These research findings suggest that objective and subjective social class are positively associated with hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, with BPNS acting as a mediator between social class and hedonic/eudaimonic well-being. This implies that individuals with higher social class should have higher BPNS, and, in turn, should have higher hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. These findings highlight the importance of satisfying the basic psychological needs of adolescents. We have inferred that formulating appropriate strategies to promote BPNS for adolescents from disadvantaged classes may help those adolescents lead a pleasurable and meaningful life.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: We declare that we have no financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that can inappropriately influence our work, there is no professional or other personal interest of any nature or kind in any product, service and/or company that could be construed as influencing the position presented in, or the review of, the manuscript entitled, “Examining the relationship between social class and well-being in Chinese adolescents: The mediating role of basic psychological needs.”

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 31600913]; Youth Innovation Team of Shaanxi Universities; the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant numbers 2019CSLY021].

Ethics Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Institutional Review Board of Shaanxi Normal University and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Consent to Participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Consent for Publication

The research represents original work and has not been submitted for publication elsewhere, and manuscript is approved by all authors for publication.

ORCID iD

Yangmei Luo

Availability of data and material

Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.

Author Biographies

Yuzhuo Zhang is a graduate student at Shaanxi Normal University. Her work focuses on well-being and prosocial behavior.

Wei Zhao is a graduate student at Shaanxi Normal University. His work focuses on well-being.

Tong Jiang is a graduate student at Shaanxi Normal University. Her work focuses on hedonic adaptation and prosocial motivation.

Xuhai Chen is an associate professor at Shaanxi Normal University. His research focuses on emotion and social cognition.

Yangmei Luo is an associate professor at Shaanxi Normal University. His research focuses on social cognition, well-being, and emotion.

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