ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1671609
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Role of New Media in Social Interactions: Implications for Mental Health and Well-beingView all articles
Social Withdrawal Subtypes and Psychological Well-being in Chinese Emerging and early Adults: Unsociability as a Protective Factor and Age-Differentiated Effects in a New Media Social Environment
Provisionally accepted
- 1Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
- 2Nankai University, Tianjin, China
- 3Peking University, Beijing, China
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In the digital age, social withdrawal as a stable personality trait has become increasingly complex, as individuals may engage in face-to-face withdrawal while maintaining digital social connections through new media platforms. Well-established withdrawal subtypes have been studied in Western cultures, but their implications in Chinese digital social contexts remain underexplored. This cross-sectional study examined the associations between different social withdrawal subtypes and psychological well-being indices among Chinese emerging and early adults, with consideration of the contemporary digital social landscape. Participants (n = 1365, M_age = 27.79) completed an online survey including the Social Preference Scale for Adult-Chinese Revised (SPSA-CR), measures of psychological well-being, and relationship satisfaction. Results showed that each social withdrawal subtype was differentially associated with psychological well-being indices: shyness was significantly associated with internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and relationship satisfaction; avoidance was significantly associated with internalizing problems and relationship satisfaction; unsociability was significantly associated with aggression and relationship satisfaction. Age moderated the associations between shyness and psychological well-being indices, though effect sizes were small (β = -0.072 to 0.133). These cross-sectional findings suggest differential associations between withdrawal subtypes and well-being in Chinese cultural contexts.
Keywords: Social withdrawal, Unsociability, emerging and early adulthood, psychological well-being, Age moderation
Received: 23 Jul 2025; Accepted: 01 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kishimoto, Wang and Bai. 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: Qiyu Bai, baiqiyu_pku@163.com
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