Perceived Discrimination and Subjective Well-being among Urban Migrant Children: The Effect of Mediator and Moderator

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the mediating effects of in-group identity and perceived group status on the relationship between perceived discrimination and subjective well-being, and to examine the moderating role of belonging need on the mediating effects. Totally, 1551 migrant children from public schools and migrant children schools in Beijing volunteered to participate in this study. Data of demographic information (i.e., gender, grade, and school type), perceived discrimination, in-group identity (i.e., cognitive identity and emotional identity), perceived in-group status, belonging need, personal and collective subjective well-being were collected through a set of self-administrated questionnaires. The results indicated that the migrant children in public primary schools had higher scores on personal and collective subjective well-being than did those in public middle schools and migrant children schools; compared with girls, boys had higher scores on life satisfaction and lower scores on collective well-being. Overall, the present study showed that the mediating effects of in-group emotional identity and perceived in-group status on the relationship between perceived discrimination and subjective well-being was moderated by belonging need. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)