Adolescent Online Personality Labeling and Mental Health: The Mediating Effect of Interpersonal Relationships

The rise of online personality assessments has drawn widespread attention, but their impact on adolescents' interpersonal relationships and mental health remains unclear. This study investigates how self-labeling from these assessments affects mental health through interpersonal relationships. This study explores the mediating role of interpersonal relationships between online personality labeling and mental health based on the usage of online personality assessments among adolescents. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 575 internet users aged 14-25 (135 males, 440 females). Online personality self-labeling, interpersonal relationships, and mental health were measured using three questionnaires. Through statistical analysis, a simple mediation model with interpersonal relationships as the mediating variable was constructed to analyze the relationship between self-labeling and mental health. The results show that interpersonal relationships significantly mediate the relationship between the cognitive-affective aspect of self-labeling and mental health, while the social performance aspect of self-labeling has a direct effect on the suppression aspect of mental health. This provides new directions for future research on self-labeling phenomena and the development of adolescent interpersonal relationships and mental health.