Identity Matters for Life Satisfaction: Within-Person Pathways and Family-Type Differences Among Multicultural Adolescents

Abstract This study examined within-person prospective associations between identity awareness and life satisfaction among multicultural adolescents in South Korea, focusing on whether peer support and self-rated health mediate this association and whether perceived family economic status (PFE) moderates it. Three annual waves of the Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study (N = 2,271) were analyzed with a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) that separates within-person change from stable between-person variance, complemented by bootstrap mediation tests, moderated-mediation analysis, and multi-group comparison across family-type subgroups. The RI-CLPM fit the data well (CFI = .999, RMSEA = .025, SRMR = .008). All within-person autoregressive paths were significant, indicating meaningful continuity in each construct, but the hypothesized within-person indirect effects of identity awareness on life satisfaction through peer support and self-rated health were negligible and non-significant, although the same effects were significant in a conventional cross-lagged specification. The apparent mediation therefore reflects between-person trait covariation rather than a within-person process, and the index of moderated mediation for PFE was likewise non-significant. Peer support prospectively predicted within-person change in identity awareness, and subgroup analysis showed that identity awareness predicted subsequent life-satisfaction change only among mid-immigrant adolescents. The findings caution against process interpretations of conventional cross-lagged mediation and suggest that identity-focused support may matter most for adolescents actively engaged in identity reconstruction after migration.