The association between prosocial behavior and subjective well-being among Chinese post-00s youth: the roles of meaning in life and prosocial motivation
Yunlong Yao, Hanxiao Zhang, Jinghao Feng · 2026
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Description
Yao, Zhang, and Feng studied in 2026 why kind behaviour links to wellbeing among Chinese university students born after 2000. This generation leans toward personal goals, which clashes with the collectivist values around them. The team surveyed 1,084 students and modelled how prosocial behaviour, meaning kind acts for others, relates to subjective wellbeing through two parts of meaning in life: having meaning and searching for it.
Yao found kind behaviour linked to higher wellbeing through both meaning paths at once. The strength of a student's prosocial motivation, their drive to help, changed the pattern. When motivation ran high, the links between kindness, meaning, and wellbeing grew robustly stronger. When motivation was low, the path through searching for meaning vanished and the whole link weakened a lot. The authors argue motivation must sit inside studies of kindness and wellbeing, not beside them.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Yunlong Yao, Hanxiao Zhang, Jinghao Feng |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 37 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |