From Empty to Flourishing: Latent Profile and Decision Tree Analysis of Well-Being in Chinese Adolescents

Previous research has often treated hedonic and eudaimonic well-being as separate dimensions, focusing on their respective determinants and mechanisms while neglecting an integrated perspective on the quality of life and the heterogeneity within populations that exhibit diverse combinations of these dimensions. To address these gaps, this study applied latent profile analysis on Chinese adolescents in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) dataset (N = 12,058; 47.78% female). Four distinct well-being profiles were identified: “Empty”, “Dissatisfied with Life”, “Moderate Well-being”, and “Flourishing”. These profiles reflect variations in hedonic well-being (negative/positive emotions, life satisfaction) and eudaimonic well-being (meaning in life, resilience). Employing an ecological systems framework, decision tree modeling was used to investigate the interactions between individual and environmental factors that shape these profiles. The sense of school belonging emerged as the most significant predictor, interacting with factors, including mastery goal orientation, competitiveness, bullying experiences, parental emotional support, perceived school competitiveness, parental socioeconomic status, and learning time. The findings reveal unique combinations of risk and protective factors associated with each profile, offering nuanced insights into the predictors of adolescent well-being. This study contributes to the literature by identifying diverse well-being profiles and exploring the predictors of these profiles, providing practical implications for targeted screening and intervention strategies to support adolescents’ overall well-being.