Parental Autonomy Support and Psychological Resilience in College Students: The Longitudinal Sequential Mediating Roles of Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Autonomous Motivation

The college years represent a critical period for the dynamic construction of psychological adaptation systems. To clarify the internal transformation mechanism from a supportive environment to the formation of psychological resilience, this study employed a questionnaire method to conduct three surveys at six-month intervals with 3090 Chinese college students. It examined the developmental trajectories and internal relationships among parental autonomy support, basic psychological need satisfaction, autonomous motivation, and psychological resilience. The results indicated that: (1) Parental autonomy support, basic psychological need satisfaction, autonomous motivation, and psychological resilience were all significantly positively correlated across the three measurements. (2) T1 parental autonomy support had a significant total effect on T3 psychological resilience. (3) Basic psychological need satisfaction and autonomous motivation played a longitudinal sequential mediating role between T1 parental autonomy support and T3 psychological resilience. Specifically, T1 parental autonomy support enhanced T2 basic psychological need satisfaction, which in turn strengthened T2 autonomous motivation, ultimately leading to higher T3 psychological resilience. The findings elucidate the dynamic process through which parental autonomy support fosters psychological resilience in Chinese college students by satisfying basic psychological needs and promoting autonomous motivation. This provides key longitudinal evidence for Self-Determination Theory and underscores the importance of constructing a collaborative family-school autonomy-supportive environment for cultivating college students' psychological resilience.