Positive character and psychological well‐being: A nuanced examination among adolescents from diverse rural–urban and migration contexts

Abstract Introduction Positive character is an integral component of positive youth development that relates to psychological well‐being among adolescents, yet the literature has largely overlooked its within‐group variation. This study examined the latent profiles of positive character and explored their variation in psychological well‐being across four adolescent groups (i.e., migrant, left‐behind, rural local, and urban local adolescents) within each profile. Methods A diverse sample of 15,895 adolescents from 10 provinces of China (Mean age = 13.16, SD = 2.53; 47.5% girls) completed a cross‐sectional survey on positive character and psychological well‐being in 2017. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted based on four positive characters. We investigated the distribution of each positive character profile across subgroups, as well as if and how the psychological well‐being varied across different adolescent groups within each profile. Results LPA revealed three subgroups, including “Thriving” (53.6%), “Moderate” (39.1%), and “Lagging” (7.4%) positive character profiles. The “Thriving” profile was more prevalent among the urban local (58.5%) and migrant (55.8%) adolescent groups, while the “Lagging” profile was most prevalent among the left‐behind adolescent group (11.6%). Urban local and migrant adolescents tended to show better psychological well‐being compared to rural local and left‐behind adolescents, and the disparities were generally more pronounced under the “Thriving” profile as compared to the “Moderate” and “Lagging” profiles. Conclusions Three positive character profiles were captured among four groups of Chinese adolescents varied in parental migration status and rural–urban residency. Tailored youth development programs are needed for different groups of adolescents varying in positive character profiles.