Psychological Resilience and Well-Being in Adolescents: Indirect Associations through Empathy and Expressive Communication

Abstract

Objective: This study investigated whether empathy and expressive communication account for the association between psychological resilience and psychological well-being among adolescents. Method: The participants were 722 secondary school students (Mage = 16.77, SD = 1.07; 59.43% girls) from Türkiye who completed self-report measures of psychological resilience, empathy, expressive communication, and psychological well-being. A serial mediation model was tested to examine both independent and sequential indirect associations. Results: Psychological resilience was positively associated with psychological well-being through both direct (B = .24, 95% CI [.16, .33]) and indirect (B = .25, 95% CI [.19, .31]) associations. Both empathy (B = .06, 95% CI [.03, .10]) and expressive communication (B = .14, 95% CI [.10, .19]) independently accounted for this association. A significant sequential indirect association was also observed (B = .05, 95% CI [.03, .08]), whereby resilience was associated with greater empathy, which in turn was related to stronger expressive communication and higher well-being. Conclusion: These findings suggest that the association between resilience and well-being is partly explained by interconnected socioemotional processes that link internal coping resources with interpersonal functioning.