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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Dev. Psychol.
Sec. Social and Emotional Development
Volume 2 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fdpys.2024.1375009
This article is part of the Research Topic The Importance of Peers: Making the Most of Peer Relationships in Childhood and Adolescence View all 3 articles

How does interpersonal curiosity impact peer rejection? The mediating effect of relative deprivation and malicious envy

Provisionally accepted
Jiali He Jiali He 1*Hanshu Liu Hanshu Liu 1,2
  • 1 City University of Macau, Macao, Macao, SAR China
  • 2 Xi'an Eurasia University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objective: Peer rejection is one of the key indicators for measuring interpersonal relationships for adolescents. Considering that interpersonal curiosity plays a significant role in interpersonal relationships. But the influence of interpersonal curiosity on peer rejection is still unknown. This study is grounded in social comparison theory and aims to investigate the impact of adolescent interpersonal curiosity on peer rejection. The study explores the impact of interpersonal curiosity on peer rejection and further investigates the mediating role of relative deprivation and malicious envy. Methods: The study employed the stratified cluster sampling method to select 418 adolescents in Shaanxi Province. The Adolescents' Relative Deprivation Scale was used to measure relative deprivation, the Benign and Malicious Envy Scale was used to measure benign envy and malicious envy, and the School Adaptation Inventory was used to measure peer rejection. The statistical software SPSS 24.0 and AMOS 24.0 were used for statistical analysis, and the common method deviation test was conducted using the Harman single-factor control method. Finally, the bootstrap sampling method was used to test the significance of the intermediary effect. Results: The results of the mediation model show that interpersonal curiosity can directly and positively affect peer rejection (β =0.317, p < 0.001); Malicious envy plays a completely mediating role (b= 0.125, p < 0.001), while relative deprivation plays a partially mediating role (b direct-path = 0.071, p = 0.004; b indirect-path = 0.064, p < 0.001). Further discovery of the chain mediation model show that interpersonal curiosity can impact individual peer rejection through the chain mediation of relative deprivation and malicious envy (b= 0.026, p < 0.001), and there is no significant gender difference in this result. Conclusions: Interpersonal curiosity can enhance peer rejection in adolescents, with relative deprivation and malicious envy completely mediating this process. This study reveals the impact of interpersonal curiosity on adolescent’s peer rejection from the viewpoint of social comparison theory and provides a new perspective for fostering the formation and growth of positive peer relationships among adolescents.

    Keywords: Writingoriginal draft, Writingreview & editing. Hanshu Liu: Writingreview & editing interpersonal curiosity, Peer rejection, relative deprivation, envy, adolescents

    Received: 23 Jan 2024; Accepted: 07 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 He and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jiali He, City University of Macau, Macao, Macao, SAR China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.