关键词: 归属需要, 朋友满意度, 共情 , 自我表露 , 青少年

Abstract: Friendship satisfaction is an important aspect of life satisfaction. It is critical for adolescent to build a healthy peer relationship, from which adolescents can gain a sense of security and social support, improve their ability to engage in social interaction successfully and promote their social adaptation. Thus, it is a very valuable topic to investigate the factors which affect the adolescents’ satisfaction with friendship for promoting the development of mental health of adolescents. As far as we know, few researches directly explored the motivational factors that affect adolescents’ satisfaction with friendship. The belongingness in individuals may be related to adolescents’ satisfied friendship (or peer) relationship. According to the theory of the internal needs of interpersonal relationships, adolescents are willing to spend more time with their satisfied peers, because they can gain stronger sense of belongingness to be one group largely from available social communication with the peers. It is helpful for us to better understand adolescents’ satisfaction with friendship by investigating the relationship between friendship satisfaction and belongingness. In addition, according to previous studies, the empathy and self-disclosure are related to adolescents’ satisfaction with friendship and the need to belong. Therefore, they may also play a role in the relationship between the need to belong and adolescents’ satisfaction with friendship. In this study, empathy and self-disclosure have been introduced as two mediating variables to explore their effects in the relationship between the need to belong and satisfaction with friendship. In sum, this paper reported here aimed to explore the relationship between satisfaction with friends and the need to belong, and examine the series mediating role of empathy and self-disclosure. A total of 1296 adolescents from Hunan and Hubei provinces participated in this study. They filled out a series of questionnaires including the need to belong, empathy, self-disclosure, and satisfaction with friendship. The statistical analysis was conducted by SPSS 22.0. The results showed that, (1) Empathy played the mediating role between the need to belong and adolescents’ satisfaction with friendship. The need to belong not only directly influenced satisfaction with friendship, but also significantly predicted satisfaction with friendship through empathy. (2) Self-disclosure had a mediating effect between the need to belong and adolescents’ satisfaction with friendship. (3) Empathy and self-disclosure played the serial mediating role between the need to belong and adolescents’ satisfaction with friendship. The findings of this study reveal a serial mediation model that underlies the relationship between the need to belong and adolescents' satisfaction with friendship. The results supported the hypothesis that there is a complex link between the need to belong and satisfaction with friendship. The conclusions have a great significance for improving life satisfaction and normal socialization of adolescents.

Key words: the need to belong, friend satisfaction, empathy, self –disclosure, adolescents