ArticleJournal of youth and adolescence2026
Longitudinal Associations between Mattering Dimensions and Loneliness in Adolescents: Bidirectional Effects at between- and Within-Person Levels.
Article in Journal of youth and adolescence, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Feeling insignificant, hopeless, and unkind to oneself: lessons learned from lonely young adults during pandemic times.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Although cross-sectional research links mattering to reduced adolescent loneliness, longitudinal studies examining temporal dynamics and distinctions between analytical levels or mattering dimensions are scarce. Without understanding whether mattering-loneliness associations reflect stable individual differences or dynamic within-person processes, researchers cannot determine if these constructs reciprocally influence each other during adolescence. This study investigated bidirectional relationships between three mattering dimensions (general mattering, anti-mattering, and fear of not mattering) and loneliness at between-person and within-person levels among 1705 Chinese high school students across three time points (49.9% female; M age = 16.55 years, SD = 0.67 at T1). Cross-lagged panel models (CLPM) assessed between-person differences, and random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM) isolated within-person fluctuations from stable traits. Between-person analyses showed that adolescents with higher anti-mattering or fear of not mattering than peers experienced increased loneliness over time, and higher loneliness predicted lower general mattering and higher negative mattering, forming reinforcing cycles; general mattering did not predict subsequent changes in loneliness over time. Within-person analyses revealed that spikes in anti-mattering and fear of not mattering above personal baselines predicted increased loneliness, with some evidence of reciprocal effects, though these were inconsistent in sensitivity analyses; general mattering showed no cross-lagged effects in either direction. These findings highlight two intervention targets: addressing chronic loneliness and negative mattering to disrupt stable between-person cycles through long-term programs, and monitoring within-person spikes in negative mattering to prevent short-term loneliness increases via timely supports.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.