Students' help-seeking mediates the relationship between happiness and self-strength: a comparative study on Chinese and Pakistani adolescents

Purpose - Positive psychology helps us understand the knowledge required to contribute to adolescents' societal development and adjustability. Adolescence is the crucial stage to work on for a balanced personality. The present study concerned adolescents' self-strength, happiness, and help-seeking behaviour. The authors aimed to explore the relationship between adolescents' self-strength and happiness and investigate the mediational effect of adolescents' help-seeking behaviour on their self-strength and happiness. Design/methodology/approach - The research design of the current quantitative study was correlational, and 809 adolescents from China and Pakistan participated in the present study. Data were personally collected from participants through self-developed scales. Findings - We deployed Pearson correlation and simple mediation using SPSS software and found a linear, positive, strong (r = 0.654, n = 809, p = 0.000 < 0.01) and statistically significant correlation between adolescents' self-strength and happiness. The authors also found a significant indirect effect of help-seeking on adolescents' self-strength and happiness at (beta = 0.373, t(907) = 7.01). Research limitations/implications - Using self-reported scales to gather information was one of the study's limitations. Adolescents may have misunderstood the notion or construct narrated in words or responded biasedly despite the bilingual scales. Practical implications - This study offers social and practical implications for educators, parents, and school administrators to address the development of adolescents' personalities using a positive psychology lens. Originality/value - The findings are of significant importance for teachers working in the elementary schools. They may work on adolescents' self-strength, happiness, and help-seeking to develop balanced personalities.