Shared Dimensions, Divergent Patterns: Multidimensional Well-Being Among Cultural Majority and Minoritized Adolescents
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Adolescents adapt constantly to their social environments, which can support certain functions while limiting others. In intercultural contexts, adolescents share institutions but hold different social positions and cultural references. Consequently, similar overall well-being scores can mask entirely different combinations of health, relationships, and material conditions—a limitation of single total scores. Well-being and acculturation research approach this problem differently. Well-being research provides broad theories but typically focuses on global indicators within Western majority samples, while acculturation research studies adaptation in intercultural contexts but primarily examines minorities and separates psychological adjustment from sociocultural competence. Researchers currently lack a common multidimensional framework to capture well-being variations among adolescents sharing an intercultural environment. We addressed this gap in 1,385 Belgian-majority and Turkish–Moroccan minoritized adolescents using exploratory and multigroup factor analyses, which supported a broadly comparable five-domain structure. This demonstrates that a common framework can apply across groups while accommodating meaningful differences in how well-being is experienced and organized. Item-level differences formed a mixed profile rather than a consistent advantage for either group. Cross-sectional Gaussian graphical models revealed differences in overall edge-weight structure and global strength, with greater aggregate connectivity in the Turkish–Moroccan network, though no individual edge difference survived correction. Across both groups, the strongest associations clustered within domains alongside cross-domain links. These findings suggest that adolescent well-being is better understood as a multidimensional system than as a single score: shared dimensions can coexist with different profiles and relational organization. Longitudinal research is needed to determine whether these patterns reflect contextual conditions, cultural orientations, or their interplay.
Source: PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints)
Institution: KU Leuven
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7213529219