Parental Social Comparison Shaming Hinders Chinese Adolescents' Presence of Life Meaning Through Thwarting Satisfaction of Need for Competence, Especially for Those Endorsing Reciprocal Filial Piety

Abstract

Using three-wave data from 962 Chinese adolescents (45.1% boys, M_age = 12.369, SD = 0.699 at T1, September 2022), this study examined the link between parental social comparison shaming and adolescents' life meaning, with adolescents' satisfaction of need for competence tested as a mediator and filial piety tested as a moderator. Parental social comparison shaming (T1) was negatively associated with adolescents' presence of life meaning (T3, September 2023, controlling for baseline) through a negative association with adolescents' satisfaction of competence need (T2, March 2023, controlling for baseline). The link between social comparison shaming and satisfaction of competence need was more pronounced among adolescents with higher (versus lower) reciprocal filial piety. The identified indirect effect was also stronger among adolescents with higher (versus lower) reciprocal filial piety.

Keywords: basic need for competence; filial piety; life meaning; social comparison shaming.

FIGURE 1

Results for the primary model without moderators. All coefficients are standardized and identified with covariates included. In addition to the T1 baseline controls for the mediators and outcomes, other demographic covariates included: Child Age and Gender (at T1) and Family SES (mean of T1, T2, and T3). For clarity, (a) pathways with p > 0.05 (two‐tailed) are depicted in gray dash lines and pathways with p < 0.05 (two‐tailed) are depicted in black solid lines; (b) the relevant coefficients for nonsignificant correlation lines or predicating paths are not reported but available from authors upon request; and (c) the correlation lines and predicting paths involving demographic covariates are not depicted and the relevant coefficients are not reported but available from authors upon request. T1 = Time 1, T2 = Time 2, and T3 = Time 3. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 (two‐tailed).

FIGURE 2

Results for the primary model with moderators. All coefficients are standardized and identified with covariates included. In addition to the T1 baseline controls for the mediators and outcomes, other demographic covariates included: Child Age and Gender (at T1) and Family SES (mean of T1, T2, and T3). For clarity, (a) pathways with p > 0.05 (two‐tailed) are depicted in gray dash lines and pathways with p < 0.05 (two‐tailed) are depicted in black solid lines; (b) the relevant coefficients for nonsignificant correlation lines or predicating paths are not reported but are available from authors upon request; and (c) the correlation lines and predicting paths involving demographic covariates are not depicted and the relevant coefficients are not reported but are available from authors upon request. T1 = Time 1, T2 = Time 2, and T3 = Time 3. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 (two‐tailed). For readers' curiosity, in a separate model (which was constructed on the basis of the model depicted above), we tested the potential moderating roles of reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety in the direct associations between parental social comparison shaming and adolescents' life meaning outcomes. Yet, due to the sparseness and counterintuitive nature of significant results and also to keep the primary analyses coherent and focused, we presented this additional set of analyses in the File S2.

FIGURE 3

Illustration of the moderating role of child reciprocal filial piety (T1) in the link between parental social comparison shaming (T1) and child satisfaction of need for competence (T2). T1 = Time 1, T2 = Time 2, and T3 = Time 3.

FIGURE 4

Results for an alternative model demonstrating the directionality and robustness of the hypothesized mediation pathway. All coefficients are standardized and identified with covariates included. In addition to the T1 baseline controls for the mediators and outcomes, other demographic covariates included: Child Age and Gender (at T1) and Family SES (mean of T1, T2, and T3). For clarity, (a) pathways with p > 0.05 (two‐tailed) are depicted in gray dashed lines and pathways with p < 0.05 (two‐tailed) are depicted in black solid lines; (b) the relevant coefficients for nonsignificant correlation lines or predicting paths are not reported but available from authors upon request; and (c) the correlation lines and predicting paths involving demographic covariates are not depicted and the relevant coefficients are not reported but available from authors upon request. T1 = Time 1, T2 = Time 2, and T3 = Time 3. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 (two‐tailed).