The reciprocal relationships between positive youth development and psychological distress in adolescents: the moderating role of gender and stress mindsets.

Although previous studies have suggested a reciprocal relationship between Positive Youth Development (PYD) and adolescent psychological distress, the distinction between within-person dynamics and between-person differences remains unexamined. Given the gender differences in adolescents' PYD and psychological distress, we examined gender as a moderator to test for gender-specific developmental dynamics. Additionally, early adolescence is filled with developmental challenges; therefore, we examined stress mindsets as moderators to clarify how cognitive appraisals of these challenges shape these reciprocal processes. Using three-wave longitudinal data from 2331 Chinese adolescents (Mage = 13.92, SD = 0.65; 52.4% girls), we applied a random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) combined with multigroup analysis and local structural equation modeling (LSEM). At the between-person level, results demonstrated a strong negative correlation between PYD and distress. At the within-person level, increases in psychological distress significantly predicted subsequent declines in PYD, whereas the reverse pathway was not significant. These relationships were consistent across genders. LSEM analyses revealed that a stress-is-debilitating mindset linearly moderated the autoregressive pathways of psychological distress. Conversely, a stress-is-enhancing mindset showed no significant within-person moderating effect. These findings indicate that protecting adolescent development requires reducing psychological distress and addressing negative stress mindsets.