The Effect of Caring Ability on Perceived Stress Mediated by Resilience

While the literature has shown some positive effects of receiving social support, the benefits of offering support and helping others have also been emphasized recently. Based on this perspective, our research focuses on the effects of the ability to care for others on reducing stress perception. In addition, studies continue to suggest that factors comprising caring ability indispensably serve to build individual resilience. However, it is less clear how these factors contribute to individual resilience and relieve psychological stress. Thus, the present study aims to investigate the effect of caring ability on stress perception mediated by resilience at a factor level. A total of 295 Chinese graduate, undergraduate, and college students (221 females, 74 males; mean age = 21.67, SD = 1.91) completed the Caring Ability Inventory (CAI), the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), and the Perceived Stress Scale-14 (PSS-14). A structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis with the maximum likelihood estimation procedure was used to examine the proposed model. Path coefficients indicated that knowing and courage in the CAI predicted less stress perception while patience in the CAI produced an opposite effect. A mediation analysis revealed that resilience successfully mediated the relationship between knowing as well as between courage and perceived stress. The results suggest that a higher degree of knowing and courage relate to a higher degree of resilience, which could reduce distressful feelings and enhance stress coping skills. Our findings provide specific insights into the roles of knowing, courage, and resilience in alleviating perceived stress and could inspire stress prevention or intervention practices in the future.