Abstract
This study set out to explore the mediating role of achievement motivation and the moderating role of self-esteem in the association between self-consciousness and grit of adolescents. Participants were adolescent students from a Chinese rural middle school (n = 422; female = 58.8%; mean age = 14.13 years; SD = 1.61 years). They completed the Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS), the Grit Scale, the Achievement Motivation Scale (AMS), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES). The results showed that self-consciousness, achievement motivation, and self-esteem were significantly and positively related to grit. Further, self-consciousness was significantly associated with grit. Moderation-mediation modelling analysis results showed that achievement motivation significantly and indirectly mediated the relationship between self-consciousness and grit. The indirect effect of achievement motivation was significantly moderated by self-esteem, suggesting that with an increased level of self-esteem, self-consciousness effects on achievement motivation weakened. Both achievement motivation and self-esteem appeared to be mechanisms for increasing resilience in rural adolescent students.
Conflict of interest statement
None.
Ethics approval statement
The study was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. This study was granted approval by the Ethics Committee of Hunan Women’s University. The researchers informed the participants of the purpose of this research. Individuals who signed the informed consent form were allowed to participate in the study.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all the teachers and students who provided help during the research and the adolescents who participated in this study.