The mediating role of financial behavior in the relationship between psychological capital and financial wellbeing: evidence from a cross-sectional study in China

_predict > 0.10; Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = 0.028; Normed Fit Index (NFI) = 0.973) and a smoothness across gender, education, and age. We also find that it is consistent across gender/education and age groups. All of these results support Psychological Capital to be a potentially flexible psychological tool that can positively affect financial wellbeing directly and in a more adaptive manner. This suggests that interventions embedding resilience-building, hope-enhancing, and self-efficacy-strengthening components within financial education may help individuals cultivate more secure long-term financial outcomes. By embedding Psychological Capital within a behavioral explanation framework, we complement the model of financial well-being and provide one of the first population-weighted PLS-SEM studies on the relationships between Psychological Capital and Financial Behavior in China.