Relational Needs, Personality Functioning, and Mental Health in Young Adulthood: A National Study

Abstract

Young adulthood is marked by multiple demands that challenge psychosocial adaptation and mental health. It is therefore essential to understand the factors that promote healthy psychological development during this developmental stage. The present study examined the association between relational needs (i.e., authenticity, shared experience, social support, having an impact, and initiative from others) and mental health (i.e., well-being and psychological symptoms), both directly and indirectly via personality functioning (i.e., identity, self-direction, empathy, and intimacy). Participants were 1537 young adults (18-35 years old, M = 27.37, SD = 5.17) from a national population matched quota based sample, whose data were collected via self-report measures and analyzed using structural equation modeling. Regression analyses showed that higher satisfaction of relational needs was associated with greater emotional, psychological, and social well-being, as well as fewer anxiety, depressive, somatic, attentional, and thought-related symptoms. Mediation analyses revealed direct and indirect associations with well-being, but only indirect associations with symptoms, indicating that personality functioning partially mediated the effects on positive mental health indicators and totally mediated the effects on negative indicators. Overall, these findings suggest that satisfying young adults' relational needs fosters adaptive personality processes that support human flourishing and protect against psychological distress. Healthy personality functioning thus emerges as a relevant mediating variable that may help explain how relational experiences are associated with psychological resources. The mediation patterns reveal distinct pathways for different mental health indicators, highlighting the value of an integrative perspective on mental health and providing empirically grounded insights for theory and practice.