Adolescents’ Covitality Patterns: Relations with Student Demographic Characteristics and Proximal Academic and Mental Health Outcomes

Abstract

Identifying and promoting students’ social-emotional strengths is essential in building their mental health. Covitality, representing the co-occurrence of psychological strengths, is a helpful framework for characterizing students’ well-being. This study used latent profile analysis to identify adolescents’ (n = 11,217; 50.3% female, 37.8% male; grades 9 [33.7%], 10 [21.0%], 11 [28.9%], and 12 [16.5%]) covitality patterns across 12 social-emotional health domains. We investigated whether student demographic characteristics (i.e., sex, parent educational attainment, ethnic identification) were related to profile membership. We further examined profiles’ relations to students’ proximal academic and mental health outcomes, including self-reported grades, school connectedness, life satisfaction, and psychological distress. Four covitality profiles were identified—High, Moderate-High, Moderate-Low, and Low. Profile membership was statistically significantly related to students’ sex and socioeconomic circumstances but with small effect sizes. We identified consistent differences across covitality profiles on student self-reported proximal outcomes. Overall, students in profiles with higher covitality levels (High and Moderate-High) reported (a) higher grades, school connectedness, and life satisfaction and (b) less psychological distress, with students in the High profile reporting the most favorable outcomes. Assessing students’ strengths and providing interventions focused on building strengths across domains are recommended.