Feeling Needed and Useful and Psychological Well-Being in Early to Middle Adolescence

As adolescents begin to expand their social worlds, their ability, motivation, and opportunities to contribute increase. In addition to receiving social support, feeling that one is needed and useful to others may thus be a developmentally salient resource for well-being. The present study investigated the implications of feeling needed and useful for psychological and daily well-being during early to middle adolescence, a time of emergent prosocial contributions.

The present study utilized behavioral data from the second of three time points of measurement of a larger longitudinal study of adolescents in the United States. Participants (n = 133; M_age = 13.42 years; 51.1% Male, 48.9% Female; 39.8% White, 12.8% Latino, 9.0% African American, 9.0% Asian American, 24.8% Other Ethnicity) completed an online questionnaire and seven consecutive daily checklists. Data collection spanned from March 2020 to July 2022.

Participants reported feeling more needed by their friends than family, with no age, gender, or ethnic variations. Feeling needed and useful was associated with better psychological well-being, and feeling needed by family mediated associations of family support with self-esteem and depressive symptoms. Those who felt needed by family and friends had more positive daily mood, and those who feel needed by friends has a weaker daily-level association between prosocial behavior and negative mood.

Findings highlight the psychological importance of helping adolescents feel that they can contribute and be useful to others, in addition to receiving support themselves. Future research should investigate trajectories of feeling needed and useful in diverse social contexts and their implications for long-term psychological well-being.