Exploring the mediating roles of social comparison and social support in the association between parental social media use and distress: Testing an inconsistent mediation model

Abstract

Given the wide spread use of social media among parents, the present study aims at exploring the relationship between social media engagement and parental stress. An inconsistent mediation model was proposed, with parental social media engagement (1) enhances perceived social support, which in turn lowers parental stress and (2) heightens social comparison, resulted in an increase in parental stress. It also explored the moderation effect of self-compassion on the effect of social media engagement in perceived social support and social comparison. Results found that perceived social support was not a significant mediator, but social comparison did mediate the effect of parental social media engagement and parental stress. Exploratory analysis further revealed that the indirect effect of parental social media engagement on parental stress through social comparison becomes stronger when the level of self compassion increases. Tentative explanation and implications of the findings are discussed. The present study shed lights on parenting context.