HPRHealth Psychology ResearchTBA2420-8124Health Psychology Research10.14440/hpr.0377Research ArticleQuality of Generative Artificial Intelligence Use and Adolescent Well-Being: Pathways via Happiness, Meaning, and Resilience in Southwest Chinahttps://healthpr.org/journal/HPR/14/1/10.14440/hpr.0377LiXianfeng,ZhangXi20261412026-03-31Background Evidence on adolescents’ generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) use and its associations with mental health is mixed. Objective We aim to examine whether GenAI-use motivation is associated with psychological resilience, testing both parallel mediation through happiness and meaning and serial mediation via happiness → meaning. Methods Adolescents attending boarding high schools in Southwest China with an on-campus phone ban (N = 395) completed measures of GenAI-use motivation, happiness, meaning in life, and resilience. Weekly off-campus/home GenAI-use frequency was self-reported using a single ordinal item. GenAI was defined as content-generating artificial intelligence accessed via standalone tools or embedded features. Partial least squares structural equation modeling with bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrapping (5,000 resamples) estimated associations and indirect effects. Results Motivation was weakly associated with happiness (β = 0.128) and positively associated with meaning (β = 0.197); happiness was related to meaning (β = 0.535). The total indirect effect on resilience was β = 0.183 (95% CI = [0.085, 0.277]) via happiness (β = 0.050, 95% CI = [0.001, 0.093]), meaning (β = 0.098, 95% CI = [0.047, 0.156]), and happiness → meaning (β = 0.034, 95% CI = [0.001, 0.068]). Self-reported use frequency showed a weak negative association with resilience (β = −0.062). The model explained 61.3% of the variance in resilience (R2 = 0.613). Conclusion Adolescents’ motivation for using GenAI may be more informative than frequency alone. School-based GenAI literacy, supported by educator professional learning that promotes guided, goal-directed use, may help foster adolescents’ meaning in life and psychological resilience.Adolescents, Generative artificial intelligence, Happiness, Meaning in life, Psychological resilience

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