Psychoneuroendocrinology 143 (2022) 105846
Available online 22 June 2022
0306-4530/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Positive affect decreases the negative association between social mobility belief and physical health among Chinese rural-to-urban
migrant adolescents
Hua Ming
a, Chenyi Zuo
a, Feng Zhang
a, Yi Ren
a, Hongchuan Zhang
b, Silin Huang
a,c,*aInstitute of Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
bSchool of Sociology and Psychology, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China
cBeijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education, Beijing Normal University, China
A R T I C L E I N F O Keywords:
Social mobility belief Physical health Mental health Positive affect Allostatic load
Chinese rural-to-urban migrant adolescents
A B S T R A C T
Objective: The belief in upward social mobility promotes the mental health and social adaptation of disadvan- taged adolescents. However, efforts for upward mobility may facilitate psychosocial adaptation while under- mining physical health for minority youth from disadvantaged backgrounds. Therefore, we aimed to examine how social mobility belief is associated with mental and physical health among Chinese rural-to-urban migrant adolescents and explore whether positive affect acts as a protective factor moderating these relationships.
Method: A total of 158 rural-to-urban migrant adolescents aged 10–14 completed a self-report questionnaire and underwent medical examination.
Results: Social mobility belief and positive affect were positively related to mental health (general self-efficacy).
Positive affect interacted with social mobility belief in predicting physical health (self-rated health and allostatic load). For migrant adolescents with low levels of positive affect, strong belief in social mobility was associated with poor self-rated health and high allostatic load. For migrant adolescents with high levels of positive affect, their physical health was better and not associated with social mobility belief.
Conclusions: Social mobility belief showed a double-edged sword effect; it was positively associated with mental adaptation while negatively associated with physical health among Chinese rural-to-urban migrant adolescents.
Positive affect acted as a protective factor for decreasing the negative association between social mobility belief and physical health.
1. Introduction
Unprecedented growth of rural-to-urban migrants has occurred in China as a result of rapid economic growth and urbanization processes since the 1980 s. Numerous farmers have moved from their hometowns to eastern coastal locations (i.e., Beijing and Shanghai) in search of better work opportunities and improved living conditions. At the same time, the trend of family mobility has strengthened, and many children have relocated to host cities with their parents. In 2019, there were over 14.27 million rural-to-urban migrant children at the primary and junior high school levels (generally 7–15 years old) in China (Ministry of Ed- ucation of the People’s Republic of China, 2020).
Even though migration usually improves their household incomes
and leads to new life perspectives, migrant adolescents are likely to experience unique challenges compared with their urban peers (Wang and Mesman, 2015). First, their family socioeconomic status is still lower than that of their urban peers. Rural-to-urban migrant families are at an extreme disadvantage in both family income and parental educa- tion level compared with nonmigrant urban families (X. Chen et al., 2019; Luo and Zhang, 2017). Ma et al. (2018) reported that compared with local urban families, migrant parents were less likely to reach a monthly income above ¥9000 (7 % vs. 41 %), to have a degree above high school (7 % vs. 78 %), to be employed full-time (57 % vs. 86 %) and to own a home in Beijing (3 % vs. 85 %). Second, as temporary residents, they are not granted equal access to education, medical care and other social services in the cities in which they live. For example, many Abbreviations: AL, allostatic load.
* Correspondence to: Institute of Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (H. Ming), [email protected] (C. Zuo), [email protected] (F. Zhang), [email protected] (Y. Ren), [email protected] (H. Zhang), [email protected] (S. Huang).
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2022.105846
Received 7 December 2021; Received in revised form 15 May 2022; Accepted 20 June 2022
migrant children enrol in privately operated migrant schools, which are usually equipped with inadequate teaching facilities and resources (Chen and Fang, 2013). Third, they might experience more discrimi- nation and a higher level of perceived stress than their nonmigrant peers (J. Wang et al., 2018). Empirical studies have indicated that migrant adolescents are more likely to encounter emotional, behavioural and physical maladjustment problems than their nonmigrant counterparts (Hu et al., 2014; Jordan and Graham, 2012; Liu et al., 2017; Sun et al., 2016).
Rural-to-urban migrant adolescents are a high-risk group in China.
Compared with their urban peers, they are confronted with more envi- ronmental stressors (Wang and Mesman, 2015) and prone to more emotional and behavioural maladjustment (Hu et al., 2014) and poorer health (Sun et al., 2016). The stress process model emphasizes the vital role of coping resources in the path from social stress to health (Turner, 2013). Social mobility belief is an important individual-level coping resource associated with increased struggle and diminished behavioural problems (Browman, Svoboda et al., 2019; Weintraub et al., 2015).
However, an increasing number of studies have pointed out that among individuals with limited resources, high-effort coping facilitates mental health but is detrimental to physical health (Brody et al., 2013; E. Chen et al., 2015; Robinson and Tobin, 2021). Thus, we examined how social mobility belief is associated with mental and physical health among Chinese rural-to-urban migrant adolescents in this study and further explored whether positive affect acts as a protective factor moderating these relationships.
1.1. Social mobility belief and migrant adolescents’ health
Social mobility belief reflects people’s beliefs about the probability of reaching a higher social class in the future, especially in comparison to their parents’ position (Huang et al., 2017; Kelley and Kelley, 2009).
Previous studies found that high social mobility belief was associated with a higher tolerance of inequality (Kelley and Kelley, 2009; Shariff et al., 2016), higher subjective well-being (Hsiao et al., 2019) and fewer behavioural problems, such as alcohol use and early adolescent preg- nancy (Browman, Destin et al., 2019). Individuals who hold stronger social mobility beliefs may be more confident in their abilities and more engaged in high-effort coping behaviours. For instance, believing in one’s potential for social mobility strengthened academic intentions, persistence and performance among those with a low SES (Browman et al., 2017; Browman, Svoboda et al., 2019).
For migrant adolescents, social mobility belief is a culturally rele- vant, high-effort coping resource. Moving from rural to urban areas with parents, migrant adolescents witnessed or experienced the course of struggle for a better life. Social mobility belief may encourage them to overcome the challenges in a new environment and struggle to reach a higher social class. According to the stress process model, individual- level coping resources are an important predictor of health (Turner, 2013). However, the association between social mobility belief and health is still not clear. Most research assessing the link between social mobility belief and health has focused on mental health and health-related behaviours (Hsiao et al., 2019; Weintraub et al., 2015).
For example, upward subjective social mobility was associated with high subjective well-being (Hsiao et al., 2019) and a lower prevalence of risky behaviours, such as substance use, deviant and aggressive behaviour and obesity-related behaviour (Weintraub et al., 2015).
However, less is known about the relationship between social mobility belief and physical health. Based on high-effort coping frame- work and theory, we hypothesized social mobility belief associated with mental health positively but associated with physical health negatively among disadvantaged groups. A growing body of research shows that high-effort coping could relate to mental and physical health differently.
Among youth from disadvantages, high-effort coping attributes are psychologically beneficial but physically harmful, showing a double- edged sword effect (Brody et al., 2013, 2016; Gaydosh et al., 2018;
Robinson and Tobin, 2021). For example, Brody et al. (2013) found that for low-SES African American adolescents, high levels of self-control were associated with fewer adjustment problems, high levels of mental health but high levels of physiological risk at the same time. This phenomenon was called “skin-deep-resilience”, the external successes of disadvantaged youth take an internal physiological toll as a cost, which has been found in increasing empirical evidence (Miller et al., 2015;
Brody et al., 2020; E. Chen et al., 2015). John Henryism (JH) is another type of high-effort coping that is associated with an increased risk for negative health outcomes among individuals with limited resources (Bennett et al., 2004; James, 1994). Empirical research found that high JH was associated with lower depression but higher allostatic load (Robinson and Tobin, 2021). Social mobility belief is also an important type of high-effort coping in rural-to-urban migrant adolescents, and the efforts leading people to upward social mobility could have unexpected physical health costs (Destin, 2019). In view of previous studies, we proposed a hypothesis that among rural-to-urban migrant adolescents, social mobility belief facilitates mental health but is detrimental to physical health at the expense of struggling against adversity.
Exploring the role of social mobility belief on health among migrant adolescents contributes to highlighting the complicated associations between high-effort coping and mental vs. physical health in the Eastern disadvantaged group. Previous studies on migrant adolescents rarely investigated mental and physical health simultaneously. Allostatic load (AL) assesses cumulative physiological dysregulation due to over- activation of physiological systems in the face of chronic stressors (Dich et al., 2017; Juster et al., 2010), providing an objective and compre- hensive indicator of physical health (King et al., 2019). AL reflects cu- mulative wear and tear on the body, and higher AL scores are associated with poorer subsequent physical health outcomes, such as increased risk of mortality, cardiovascular disease, and cognitive and physical function decline (Robertson et al., 2017; Seeman et al., 1997, 2001). Self-efficacy is an individual’s perception of his or her capability to deal effectively with a variety of stressful situations (Schwarzer et al., 1999), which is conducive to migrant adaptation and better psychological adjustment (Cramm et al., 2013; Motti-Stefanidi et al., 2012). High self-efficacy, as a feature of resilient children (Xi et al., 2011), is a meaningful and representative positive mental health outcome of rural-to-urban migrant children. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the association be- tween social mobility belief and mental health (self-efficacy) and physical health (AL and self-rated health) simultaneously among rural-to-urban adolescents in China.
1.2. Positive affect and migrant adolescents’ health
Positive affect refers to feelings that reflect a level of pleasurable engagement with the environment, and high positive affect is a state of high energy and concentration (e.g., attentive, interested, alert, enthu- siastic) (Clark et al., 1989). As an important psychological resource, positive affect is not only positively associated with mental health (Fredrickson, 2001; Schutte, 2014) but also related to better physical health outcomes, such as low morbidity and mortality, low risk of car- diovascular disease, fewer chronic conditions and better self-rated health (Boehm and Kubzansky, 2012; Pressman et al., 2019; Pressman and Cohen, 2005; Steptoe et al., 2009). Failure to maintain positive affect in the face of stressors is associated with elevated levels of inflammation (Sin et al., 2015).
In addition to the direct effect on mental and physical health, the stress buffering model of positive affect proposes that positive affect can reduce the detrimental effect of stress on health through multiple paths, such as altering stress and coping appraisals, reducing stress reactivity, or hastening stress recovery (Pressman et al., 2019). Empirical studies have supported the potential moderating effect of positive affect on the relationship between psychological stress and physical health (Blevins et al., 2017; Song et al., 2014). High positive affect is protective against elevated C-reactive protein (a systemic inflammation indicator) for
3 individuals who report high levels of psychological stress (Blevins et al., 2017).
According to the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, positive affect helps to broaden thought and build enduring personal resources (Fredrickson, 2001). For individuals in disadvantaged envi- ronments, high-effort coping may be accompanied by more stress perception and social isolation. A joyful struggle towards upward social mobility may cause less wear and tear on the physiological system.
Although there was little direct evidence of positive affect moderating the relationship between social mobility belief and health, previous studies found that an individual’s emotional traits moderated the rela- tionship between high-effort coping and physiological dysregulation (Doan et al., 2016; Dich et al., 2015). For example, high persistence in combination with low negative emotionality is associated with a high level of allostatic load (Doan et al., 2016). Thus, as an important psy- chological resource alleviating the harmful effect of stress on physical health, positive affect may act as a promising protective factor, helping lighten the physiological cost of high-effort coping among disadvan- taged adolescents.
1.3. The present study
For rural-to-urban migrant children who grow up in impoverished environments, holding a strong belief of upward social mobility repre- sents the integration of high self-regulation, positive perception and determination to achieve success. As a type of high-effort coping, social mobility belief could associate differently with mental and physical health. Therefore, the first aim of the present study was to examine the associations between social mobility belief and mental health (general self-efficacy) and physical health (AL and self-rated health) among rural- to-urban migrant adolescents in China. Second, we investigated whether positive affect moderates the relationship between social mobility belief and general self-efficacy or physical health. Specifically, we formulated two hypotheses: (1) social mobility belief is positively related to general self-efficacy and negatively related to physical health (higher AL and lower self-rated health) and (2) positive affect moderates the relation- ship between social mobility belief and physical health. Specifically, the association between social mobility belief and physical health is weak- ened among migrant adolescents with a high level of positive affect compared to those with a low level of positive affect.
2. Method 2.1. Participants
The participants were 158 rural-to-urban migrant early adolescents (87 boys and 71 girls) who were recruited from a migrant school in Beijing. The participants’ ages ranged from 10 to 14 years (mean age = 11.63 years, SD age =1.13 years). These adolescents were born outside of Beijing without permanent city registration and had an average length of residence in Beijing of 7.78 years (SD =3.66; range 0.5–14) with one or both parents. These adolescents’ family socioeconomic status was relatively low; 85 % of families earned less than ¥ 6000 ($ 934) per month, and 89 % of the parents reported a junior high school or below education experience. The majority of these adolescents’ parents work in manual labour—including building workers, hotel or restaurant servers, handicraftsmen, and vendors—or were unemployed.
2.2. Procedures
The present study is part of an investigation of rural-to-urban migrant adolescents’ physical health (Tian et al., 2020). The data collection procedure was conducted in 2014. Adolescents and their parents provided informed consent and then the adolescents partici- pated in a physical examination and completed the questionnaire. Each adolescent and his or her accompanying father or mother came to a
qualified third-grade-class-A hospital at 7:00 A.M.; each adolescent was in a fasted state. All participants were provided a free physical exami- nation (including height, weight, heart rate, blood pressure, routine blood test, etc.) by clinicians. Whole blood samples were collected by a qualified nurse, and the assay process of blood samples was carried out in the hospital laboratory by clinical staff for the measurement of related indicators. After the physical examination, they completed a question- naire. The investigation took approximately 2 h and 30 min in total, and the participants received $12, transportation costs and a free meal for their contribution. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the researchers’ institutes.
2.3. Measures
2.3.1. Social mobility belief
A six-item scale was used to assess social mobility belief (e.g., “In the present society, I am capable of improving my social status”) (Ming, 2013; Huang et al., 2017). The adolescents rated how strongly they agreed with each item on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The average score of all items was calculated, with higher scores reflecting stronger beliefs in social mobility. This scale has been proven to be adequately reliable (Huang et al., 2017; Ming, Jiang et al., 2021).
The Cronbach’s alpha for the present study was 0.62.
2.3.2. Positive affect
The 10-item Positive Affect (PA) subscale of the Positive and Nega- tive Affect Scale (PANAS) was used to measure the degree to which the participants experienced positive affect (Watson et al., 1988). The PA contains 10 items describing positive affect (e.g., “strong” and
“inspired”), with responses on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (very much). The adolescents were instructed to indicate for each item the extent to which they had felt it in the past 30 days. The average score of all items was calculated, with higher scores reflecting more positive emotion. For the current study, the in- ternal consistency reliability of the PA subscale was 0.85.
2.3.3. Allostatic load
The AL scores were calculated based on 4 categories of 10 physio- logical indices: (1) cardiovascular function (resting heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure), (2) body composition (body mass index), (3) metabolism (serum triglycerides, fasting glucose, total serum cholesterol, serum high-density lipoprotein cholesterol [HDL-C], and serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol [LDL-C]), and (4) 8-hour HPA axis activity (serum cortisol).
The heart rate and systolic and diastolic blood pressure were moni- tored with an OMRON HEM-907 electronic sphygmomanometer while the participants sat quietly. The body mass index was collected and calculated using the HAIBORD height and weight measuring instrument.
Whole blood samples were extracted by a qualified nurse and assayed in the hospital by clinical laboratory staff. The metabolic indices (fasting glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol, HDL and LDL cholesterol) were analysed using a HITACHI 7060 automatic biochemical analyser, and cortisol was analysed using a ROCHE Cobas e601 automatic electro- chemical luminescence analyser.
Each biological parameter was classified into quartiles based on the distribution of scores from the sample and given a score of 1 or 0 to indicate high or low risk, respectively, which has been used in a previous study (Brody et al., 2014; Dich et al., 2017). For almost all the indices, the highest quartile was regarded as “high risk” and was scored as 1 (except for HDL-C, the lowest quartile was “high risk” and scored as 1).
The cut-off point of each parameter is shown in Table 1. The dichoto- mous scores were summed to create an overall AL score that ranged from 0 (no physiological indices at risk) to 10 (all physiological indices at risk), with higher scores reflecting higher physiological wear and tear.
2.3.4. Self-rated health
Six items from the MOS 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) were administered to assess general health (Ware and Sherbourne, 1992). The adolescents rated the extent to which their health conditions were (e.g., “In general, would you say your health is excellent/very good/good/fair/poor”) on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5.
After reverse coding, the average score of all items was calculated, with higher scores reflecting better health conditions. The Cronbach’s alpha of the 6 items was 0.72.
2.3.5. General perceived self-efficacy
The 10-item General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE) was used to measure the participants’ broad and stable sense of personal competence to deal with a variety of stressful situations (Schwarzer et al., 1997). The ado- lescents rated how strongly they agreed with each item (e.g., “I can al- ways manage to solve difficult problems if I try hard enough”) on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Cronbach’s alpha for the present study was 0.77.
2.3.6. Other covariates
Adolescents’ sex, age, family SES and residence time in Beijing were controlled. One parent of each adolescent reported their education (uneducated or incomplete primary school; primary school; junior high school; senior high school; bachelor’s degree or above) and monthly household income. The income and education scores were standardized and summed to create a family SES score for each adolescent.
2.4. Statistical analyses
The data were analysed with SPSS 22.0. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the moderating effects of positive affect on the associations between social mobility belief and mental health (general self-efficacy) and physical health (AL and self-rated health). All continuous variables were standardized in advance to
calculate the interactions before regression. As control variables, sex, age, family SES and length of residence in Beijing were included in step 1; social mobility belief and positive affect were entered as the main predictors in step 2; and the interaction between social mobility belief and positive affect was entered in step 3. For significant interactions, the specific effects were examined using a simple slope analysis. Simple slope analysis of the moderators on two levels (1SD above the mean and 1SD below the mean) and the Johnson-Neyman technique were used to separately analyse the significant interactions (Aiken and West, 1991;
Finsaas and Goldstein, 2021).
3. Results
3.1. Descriptive statistics
Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics and correlations for the main variables. The results suggested that adolescents’ social mobility belief was positively correlated with their age (r =0.18, p =0.03) and general self-efficacy (r =0.21, p =0.01). Adolescents’ positive affect was posi- tively related to social mobility belief (r =0.20, p =0.01). Positive affect scores were positively related to self-rated health scores (r =0.28, p <
0.001) and general self-efficacy (r =0.30, p <0.001) and marginally negatively correlated with allostatic load scores (r = − 0.16, p =0.05).
3.2. Predicting self-rated health
As Table 3 indicates, positive affect was positively related to self- rated health (β =0.32, p <0.001) and moderated the link between social mobility belief and self-rated health (β = 0.16, p = 0.04). As shown in Fig. 1, social mobility belief was significantly negatively associated with self-rated health for rural-to-urban migrant adolescents with low positive affect (slope = –0.27, t = − 2.14, p =0.03) but not for those with high positive affect (slope = 0.05, t =0.50，p =0.62). The Johnson-Neyman technique indicated that social mobility belief became a significant negative predictor of self-rated health when adolescents experienced positive affect at 0.62 SDs below the mean (26 % of the sample).
3.3. Predicting AL
As Table 3 indicates, positive affect was negatively related to AL (β=- 0.17, p=0.04) and marginally moderated the link between social mobility belief and AL (β=- 0.15, p=0.06). Fig. 2 indicates that social mobility belief was positively and significantly associated with AL for rural-to-urban migrant adolescents with low positive affect (slope = 0.32, t=2.46，p=0.02) but not for those with high positive affect (slope = 0.02, t=0.18, p=0.86). The Johnson-Neyman technique indicated that social mobility belief became a significant positive pre- dictor of allostatic load when adolescents experienced positive affect at 0.01 SDs below the mean (52 % of the sample).
Table 1
The measurement of allostatic load.
Allostatic load Indices N Mean SD Cutoff
point Fasting glucose (mmol/l) 158 5.19 0.51 ≥5.50 Total serum cholesterol (mmol/l) 158 3.74 0.73 ≥4.08 Serum high-density lipoprotein
cholesterol (mmol/l) 158 1.45 0.25 ≤1.28
Serum low-density lipoprotein
cholesterol (mmol/l) 158 1.98 0.67 ≥2.32
Serum triglycerides (mmol/l) 158 0.73 0.38 ≥0.86
Cortisol (nmol/l) 158 300.01 156.82 ≥365.13
Resting heart rate (beats per min） 158 92.16 12.18 ≥99.00 Systolic blood pressure (Kpa) 158 109.72 10.20 ≥117.00 Diastolic blood pressure (Kpa) 158 67.44 7.22 ≥72.00 Body mass index (kg/m2) 158 19.43 3.74 ≥21.64
Table 2
Mean, standard deviations and correlations between the main variables (N =158).
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Sex –
2. Age 0.21** –
3. Length of residence in Beijing -0.09 –0.02 –
4. Family SES 0.02 –0.08 –0.11 –
5. Social mobility belief 0.15 0.18* –0.05 0.14 –
6. Positive affect 0.14 –0.09 –0.05 0.05 0.20* –
7. Allostatic load -0.02 0.07 0.17* 0.06 0.10 –0.16+ –
8. Self-rate health -0.15+ –0.06 0.07 0.00 -0.03 0.28*** -0.11 –
9. General self-efficacy -0.13 –0.01 –0.03 -0.02 0.21** 0.30*** -0.01 –0.20* –
Mean – 11.63 7.71 0.00 2.66 2.82 2.58 3.99 2.58
SD – 1.13 3.57 1.55 0.65 0.74 2.05 0.64 0.45
Note. Sex coded 0 for girls and 1 for boys. Spearman’s rho correlations were calculated between sex and other variables; other correlations were Pearson’s correlations.
+p <0.06, *p <0.05, **p <0.01, ***p <0.001.
5 3.4. Predicting general self-efficacy
Both social mobility belief (β=0.19, p=0.02) and positive affect (β=0.29, p<0.001) were positively related to general self-efficacy.
There was no significant interaction effect of social mobility belief and
positive affect on general self-efficacy.
4. Discussion
This study used both subjective self-assessment and objective phys- iological indices to assess physical health and explored whether social mobility belief is differentially associated with mental and physical health among Chinese rural-to-urban migrant adolescents. The findings indicated that social mobility belief positively correlated with general self-efficacy, while the relationship between social mobility belief and physical health was moderated by positive affect. Specifically, among migrant adolescents with low positive affect, social mobility belief was associated with worse physical health, namely, higher AL and lower self- rated health, but there was no such pattern among adolescents with high positive affect. These findings extend previous research in several regards. First, the present study found different effects of social mobility belief on mental and physical health. Similar to other types of high-effort coping, such as self-regulatory/conscientiousness/John Henryism (Brody et al., 2013, 2016; Miller et al., 2016; Robinson and Tobin, 2021), social mobility belief could be beneficial to mental health but damage physical health for disadvantaged youth. Second, the literature documenting high-effort coping, especially skin-deep resilience and John Henryism, mainly focused on minorities in the Western context (Brody et al., 2016; Gaydosh et al., 2018; Haritatos et al., 2007), and we extended the findings to Chinese rural-to-urban migrant adolescents.
Third, we found the potential protective effect of a high level of positive affect in reducing the negative association between social mobility belief on physical health.
Both the skin-deep-resilience hypothesis and JH hypothesis posit that some high-effort coping, such as striving efforts, high self-control and high conscientiousness, are conducive to psychological outcomes at a cost to physical health among disadvantaged minorities (Brody et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2015; James, 1994; Miller et al., 2015). The present findings were consistent with previous studies and first found that social mobility belief had a similar double-edged sword effect among rural-to-urban migrant adolescents. Previous studies have mainly focused on the positive consequences of social mobility belief, such as promoting academic behaviours (Browman et al., 2017; Brow- man, Svoboda et al., 2019; Ming, Zhang et al., 2021), elevating sub- jective well-being (Hsiao et al., 2019) and reducing risk behaviours (Weintraub et al., 2015). Except for greater tolerance for inequality in society, less is known about the negative consequences of believing in social mobility (Destin, 2020). Our results expand the understanding of the divergent effects of social mobility belief on mental and physical health. Social mobility belief showed a double-edged sword effect that was beneficial to mental health at the cost of physical health, particu- larly among migrant adolescents with low positive affect. The present finding is consistent with the framework highlighting that identity Table 3
Moderating effect of positive affect on the relationship between social mobility belief and health.
Predictor variables Self-rate health Allostatic load General self-efficacy
B SE t p ΔR2 B SE t p ΔR2 B SE t p ΔR2
Step 1 0.03 0.04 0.02
Sex -0.28 0.17 -1.72 0.09 -0.09 0.16 -0.55 0.58 -0.31 0.17 -1.84 0.07
Age -0.03 0.08 -0.30 0.76 0.09 0.08 1.15 0.25 0.02 0.08 0.22 0.83
Length of residence in
Beijing 0.06 0.08 0.71 0.48 0.17* 0.08 2.14 0.03 -0.05 0.08 -0.65 0.52
Family SES 0.00 0.08 0.01 0.99 0.09 0.08 1.06 0.29 -0.03 0.08 -0.36 0.72
Step 2 0.10*** 0.03 0.14***
Social mobility belief -0.07 0.08 -0.82 0.41 0.13 0.08 1.52 0.13 0.19* 0.08 2.45 0.02
Positive affect 0.32*** 0.08 4.04 0.001 -0.17* 0.08 -2.03 0.04 0.29*** 0.08 3.76 0.001
Step 3 0.03* 0.02+ 0.00
Social mobility belief
×positive affect 0.16* 0.08 2.09 0.04 -0.15+ 0.08 -1.92 0.06 -0.06 0.07 -0.83 0.41
Note. Sex coded 0 for girls and 1 for boys. +p <0.06, * p <0.05, ** p <0.01, *** p <0.001.
Fig. 1.Positive affect as a moderator between social mobility belief and self- rated health.
Fig. 2. Positive affect as a moderator between social mobility belief and AL.
challenges that accompany the process of social mobility are likely to result in potential negative health consequences (Destin, 2019).
Similar to minorities in the West, Chinese rural-to-urban migrant adolescents have more obstacles to overcome than their privileged youth peers and often have limited resources (Wang and Mesman, 2015). However, the special family experience of moving from a rural to urban setting with parents brought them culturally relevant resilience.
Believing in the possibility of upward social mobility provides an important motivation for individuals to struggle to achieve a better life and plays an important role in adolescents’ adaptation outcomes (Browman, Svoboda et al., 2019). Social mobility belief was an impor- tant type of high-effort coping for migrant adolescents. It seems frus- trating that the perception of upward social mobility may be accompanied by highly effortful self-regulation and further burden physical health. Therefore, research and policies are needed that make upward social mobility less stressful and explore ways to reduce its health cost. However, except for demographic variables, such as ethnicity (Brody et al., 2016; Mitchell et al., 2020) and SES (Robinson and Tobin, 2021), less is known about the moderators of the relationship between high-effort coping and physical health. Both the skin-deep-resilience hypothesis and the John-Henryism pattern seem to reveal a frustrating phenomenon that for disadvantaged groups, it is difficult to obtain a win–win situation of external success and physical health. Doing nothing in the face of adversity may not be the best so- lution and could exacerbate social inequality. Exploring potential pro- tective factors, especially valuable individual or social resources, is critical to future interventions to mitigate the negative effect of high-effort coping on physical health among individuals with scarce resources.
Not all migrant adolescents who believe in the possibility of upward social mobility have health risks, and the buffering role of positive affect partly explains the individual differences in our study. The results showed that positive affect was not only directly associated with general self-efficacy, self-rated and biological health but also protected migrant adolescents from the physical health cost of high levels of social mobility belief. Our findings are consistent with the moderating role of positive affect in the relationship between psychological stress and health (Ble- vins et al., 2017; Song et al., 2014). The stress buffering model of pos- itive affect emphasizes the protective effect of positive affect on health (Pressman et al., 2019; Pressman and Cohen, 2005). Positive affect could influence behaviour and physiological systems directly, such as by increasing adaptive health behaviours, improving interpersonal re- lationships or changing neuroendocrine systems; on the other hand, it could buffer the influence of stressors, such as by altering stress appraisal, reducing stress reactivity and facilitating stress recovery (Pressman et al., 2019). For adolescents who experience less positive affect, upward social mobility may be accompanied by more stress perception and social isolation, further leading to more activation of the physiological system. Our findings imply that compared with a joyful struggle, a painful struggle towards upward mobility may cause more potential harm to migrant adolescents’ physical health. Future studies could examine whether positive affect plays the same role among other high-effort coping variables (for example, JH active coping, persistence, conscientiousness, etc.) and physical health and whether the effect holds among other adolescents from disadvantaged environments.
There are some limitations in the current study, and the results should be interpreted with caution. First, this study was a cross-sectional study, preventing causal conclusions between the variables from being drawn. Longitudinal studies and intervention studies are needed in the future. Second, the present study included a sample of nonrepresentive rural-to-urban migrant adolescents in China. Rural-to-urban migrants moved to a large city in pursuit of a better life, and their children, who witnessed this process, could therefore have stronger motivation and beliefs about social mobility. Social mobility belief is a type of culturally relevant high-effort coping only for these children or it could be generalized to other disadvantaged adolescents (such as left-behind
children in China), which needs further examination. Third, the inter- nal consistency reliability of the social mobility belief scale was low in our sample, and the results need to be further tested in larger samples.
Fourth, although we found a moderating effect of positive affect, to improve adolescents’ physical health, future studies should explore more potential environmental and individual protective factors, such as habits, lifestyle, and family atmosphere.
Despite these limitations, our findings extend the literature con- cerning the influences of social mobility belief and examine the skin- deep-resilience pattern among Chinese rural-to-urban migrant adoles- cents. The results show that social mobility belief is good for general self- efficacy and harmful to physical health, but positive affect acts as a protective factor against this physical health cost.
Funding
The child development database establishment under rural-to-urban migration context and the establishment of positive youth development system, supported by the Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Science Research Project (18YJA190003) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (32071071).
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors have declared that they have no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Yuan Tian for her help in data analysis, and thanks for the adolescents, families and school participated in this study.
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