Acculturation Stress, Satisfaction, and Frustration of Basic Psychological Needs and Mental Health of Chinese Migrant Children: Perspective from Basic Psychological Needs Theory

Qiang Ren and Shan Jiang
Additional contact information
Qiang Ren: Department of Sociology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Shan Jiang: Department of Sociology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 9, 1-11

Abstract: Acculturation stress is prevalent among migrant populations. The current study examines whether acculturation stress influences migrant children’s mental health through the mediators of the satisfaction and frustration of basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence. A sample of 484 migrant children is obtained in Kunming, China using a multi-stage cluster random sampling. Data are analyzed through structural equation modeling in Mplus 8.0. Results indicate that acculturation stress has a direct impact on children’s depression but no significant direct effect on children’s happiness. Acculturation stress also has indirect effects on depression and happiness via the mediators of need satisfaction and frustration. Acculturation stress is negatively associated with need satisfaction and positively associated with need frustration, which is further significantly predictive of children’s happiness and depression. Overall, this study validates the basic psychological needs theory in the context of China’s internal migration. Findings contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the relationship between acculturation stress and psychological outcomes and provide practical implications for future interventions.

Keywords: acculturation stress; basic psychological needs; mental health; migrant children; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4751/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4751/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:9:p:4751-:d:546151

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().