Exploring the interplay between stress-is-enhancing mindsets, emotional growth mindsets, and mental health: Dynamic structural equation modeling.

Abstract

Stress must not be avoided unilaterally because adaptive mindsets toward stress and stress-induced emotions are associated with better mental health outcomes. However, few studies have explored the reciprocal relationships between adaptive mindsets and mental health. This study assessed the role of trait-level stress-is-enhancing mindsets in the dynamic interplay between emotional growth mindsets and mental health in real-life contexts. Using ecological momentary assessment, 196 participants recorded daily stressful events, emotional growth mindsets following these events, depression and life satisfaction four times daily over 10-12 days, after completing baseline measures of stress-is-enhancing mindsets. Dynamic structural equation modeling was used to examine the cross-lagged associations between daily emotional growth mindsets and mental health indicators and to investigate the moderating role of stress-is-enhancing mindsets in these relationships. The findings suggest that increased emotional growth mindsets predict decreased depressive symptoms and elevated life satisfaction on the next occasion. Moreover, heightened levels of life satisfaction predict subsequent increases in the emotional growth mindsets. In tandem with the principal findings, this study underscores that the inverse link between preceding depressive symptoms and subsequent emotional growth mindsets, as well as the positive association between life satisfaction and subsequent emotional growth mindsets, is amplified for individuals endorsing higher stress-is-enhancing mindsets. These findings have noteworthy clinical implications since interventions geared toward fostering adaptive mindsets have the potential to simultaneously mitigate vulnerability to depression and amplify life satisfaction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).