Longitudinal associations between relationship quality and prosocial behavior in Chinese adolescents: the mediating role of meaning in life.

Objective: Positive youth development (PYD) can be enhanced through dynamic interactions between individuals and their environments. While previous research has primarily focused on its social-emotional learning mechanisms, the cognitive and motivational pathways of PYD were seldom explored. To address this gap, this study investigated the associations of parent -child relationships, teacher-student relationships, and friendships with adolescents' prosocial behavior, with a focus on the mediating role of meaning in life. Methods: A three-wave temporally ordered mediation analysis was conducted using three waves of data collected at six-month intervals from 671 Chinese junior high school students. Results: The findings revealed that the quality of parent-child relationships and friendships at Wave 1 was positively associated with both the presence and search for meaning in life at Wave 2, with friendships showing stronger associations, whereas teacher-student relationships were not significantly associated with either dimension of meaning in life. Furthermore, only the presence of meaning in life at Wave 2 was positively associated with prosocial behavior at Wave 3, while the search for meaning in life was not significantly associated with prosocial behavior. Conclusion: These findings provide practical insights into China's moral education framework, rooted in Confucian doctrine, by suggesting that high-quality relationships are associated with adolescents' sense of societal contribution as an aspect of life's meaning. Possible reasons for the nonsignificant roles of teacher-student relationships and the search for meaning in life were discussed, along with the study's limitations and directions for future research.