The Power of Sharing Joy in Same-sex Friendships: Investigating the Association between Capitalization, Sense of Uniqueness, Happiness and Depression

Abstract

Although uniqueness has various definitions in the literature, the personal sense of uniqueness, defined as the perception of unconditional self-worth, contributes positively to mental health. Research has found that perceived responses to capitalization attempts and the sense of uniqueness are negatively associated with depression and positively associated with happiness. Our study was conducted with an emerging adult sample from various ethnicities (N = 557) and investigated the sense of uniqueness as the mediator of perceived responses to capitalization attempts in friendships and mental health. The models demonstrated that the correlations between perceived responses to capitalization attempts and both happiness and depression were mediated by the sense of uniqueness. The results were discussed by considering the role of uniqueness in the capitalization process. Also, suggestions for future research were provided.