Relationships between sociocultural factors (gender, immigrant and socioeconomic background), peer relatedness and positive affect in adolescents

Introduction: During adolescence, experiencing positive emotions at school is important for motivation as well as for academic success and psychological well-being. In the present study, on the basis of Self-Determination Theory (SDT), we investigated the relationships between sociocultural factors (gender, immigrant and socioeconomic background), peer relatedness (acceptance and friendship) and positive affect at school. Methods: Data was based on a random sample of 36,712 tenth grade Italian adolescents. Their average age was 15.6 years (SD = 0.77), 50.6% were males, while 6.1% were first-generation immigrants and 3.8% were second-generation immigrants. Firstly, comparing latent means, we established peer relatedness and positive affect profiles of adolescents with different sociocultural backgrounds. Subsequently, we tested a structural equation model, based on SDT, according to which the effects of sociocultural factors on experiencing positive affect at school are mediated by peer relatedness dimensions. Results: Latent mean comparisons showed that immigrant adolescents, students with a lower-SES and girls had fewer friendships with their classmates, lower levels of positive affect at school and were less accepted by their peers. A well-fitting structural equation model corroborated the mediating role of acceptance and friendship, which accounted for 16% of variance in positive affect. Conclusions: Due to sociocultural factors, some groups of adolescents proved to be more at risk of being socially excluded and of experiencing less positive affect at school. Moreover, our findings support the claim of SDT that the satisfaction of basic psychological needs, such as relatedness, is more important than sociocultural factors in determining adolescents’ psychological well-being.