Broaden Awareness, Build Well-being: The Serial Mediation Role of Social Competence and Resilience in the Relationship Between Recreational Awareness and Psychological Well-being

Background: Adolescence is a critical developmental stage characterized by significant physical, psychological, and social transitions. During this period, leisure activities are considered vital tools for generating positive emotions and fostering developmental resources. However, the role of recreational awareness—as the tendency to make conscious and meaningful choices about leisure activities—in promoting psychological well-being, and the mechanisms through which this effect occurs, remain underexplored in the literature. Addressing this gap, the present study investigates the serial mediating roles of social competence and resilience in the relationship between recreational awareness and psychological well-being, drawing on the Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions. Methods: Data were collected through both face-to-face and online surveys administered to high school students in Türkiye. The sample comprised 1,062 adolescents (596 girls and 466 boys), aged between 13 and 16 years, selected through convenience sampling. The study employed the Recreational Awareness Scale, the Perceived Social Competence Scale, the Child and Youth Resilience Measure, and the Stirling Children’s Wellbeing Scale. Skewness and kurtosis values were used to assess normality. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, and serial mediation analysis were conducted using PROCESS Macro (Model 6) as proposed by Hayes. Results: Pearson correlation analysis revealed significant and positive associations among recreational awareness, social competence, resilience, and psychological well-being. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) results indicated that recreational awareness had a direct, significant, and positive effect on psychological well-being. Additionally, both social competence and resilience individually mediated this relationship. Crucially, evidence also supported a significant serial mediation pathway whereby social competence and resilience sequentially mediated the effect of recreational awareness on psychological well-being. Conclusion: From the Broaden-and-Build perspective, this study positions recreational awareness during adolescence as a robust predictor of psychological well-being and introduces a novel serial mediation model that explains the interplay between key socio-emotional resources. The findings underscore the importance of intervention strategies aimed at enhancing recreational awareness, social competence, and resilience within youth development programs.