Intragroup contact with other mothers living in the same neighborhood benefits mothers' life satisfaction: the mediating role of group identification and social support

Seppälä, T, Riikonen, R, Stevenson, C ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2438-6425, Paajanen, P, Repo, K and Finell, E, 2022. Intragroup contact with other mothers living in the same neighborhood benefits mothers' life satisfaction: the mediating role of group identification and social support. Journal of Community Psychology. ISSN 0090-4392

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Abstract

Becoming a mother is often accompanied by a loss of social connections, which can reduce the availability of social support. This can increase maternal stress with negative health outcomes. Therefore, we examined how mothers' social contact with other mothers living in the same neighborhood can form a compensative source of social support and wellbeing. Data was collected from mothers (N = 443) of a child under school age while visiting the public maternity and child health clinics located in two neighborhoods in Helsinki, Finland. We found that mothers' frequent and positive contact with other local mothers was positively related with their life satisfaction through identification-based social support. Contact also had a specific indirect effect on life satisfaction through social support. Frequent positive contact with other local mothers can serve to scaffold the emergence of social identification, which in turn unlocks further social support with positive health effects.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Community Psychology
Creators:	Seppälä, T., Riikonen, R., Stevenson, C., Paajanen, P., Repo, K. and Finell, E.
Publisher:	Wiley
Date:	3 November 2022
ISSN:	0090-4392
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1002/jcop.22960 DOI 1615789 Other
Rights:	This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Seppälä, T., Riikonen, R., Stevenson, C., Paajanen, P., Repo, K., & Finell, E. (2022). Intragroup contact with other mothers living in the same neighborhood benefits mothers' life satisfaction: the mediating role of group identification and social support. Journal of Community Psychology, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22960 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	07 Nov 2022 12:29
Last Modified:	03 Nov 2023 03:00
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/47343

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