{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,16]],"date-time":"2026-07-16T06:09:30Z","timestamp":1784182170896,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":53,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,16]],"date-time":"2026-07-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1784160000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Subjective well-being is a core indicator of livelihood quality and grassroots governance effectiveness. Against the backdrop of China\u2019s Rural Revitalization Strategy, improving rural residents\u2019 well-being is a central goal of national governance. However, existing scholarship has long focused on material determinants such as income and education, while lacking systematic analysis of the well-being transmission mechanisms of non-economic institutional factors like political participation. In particular, how grassroots political participation affects rural residents\u2019 happiness through socio-cognitive pathways, and the heterogeneous boundary effects of subjective social status (SSS), remain critical research gaps in rural well-being studies.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Drawing on Equity Theory and Social Cognitive Theory, this study constructs a moderated parallel mediation framework based on nationally representative data from the 2023 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS). We employ OLS regression with robust standard errors, instrumental variable estimation, and bias-corrected Bootstrap testing to systematically examine the mechanisms and boundary conditions of village committee election participation on rural residents\u2019 subjective well-being.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>First, political participation exhibits a stable positive association with rural residents\u2019 subjective well-being, which remains consistent across multiple robustness checks. However, instrumental variable estimation does not support definitive causal inference, so we prudently frame our core finding as a robust correlational association. Second, the association is transmitted through two parallel pathways: social fairness perception acts as the dominant mediating mechanism, while general social trust plays a secondary complementary role. Third, SSS exerts an asymmetric moderating effect: it only significantly strengthens the well-being returns of fairness perception among individuals with lower SSS, while no significant moderating effect is observed for the social trust pathway. Fourth, heterogeneity analysis shows that the well-being association is only significant among middle-aged (45\u201360\u202fyears) and high-income rural residents.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>This study delineates the dual psychological mechanisms and asymmetric stratification boundary of political participation\u2019s well-being effects in rural China. It not only fills the academic gap of existing well-being research\u2019s long-standing focus on material factors and neglect of non-economic psychological mechanisms, but also verifies the central role of institutional fairness perceptions in the well-being effects of grassroots governance. Our findings provide empirical evidence for advancing inclusive rural governance and precisely improving the sense of gain among different groups.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1858427","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,16]],"date-time":"2026-07-16T05:36:56Z","timestamp":1784180216000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Political participation enhances subjective well-being in rural China: the dual mediating pathways of fairness and trust"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Zhengang","family":"Zhang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology","place":["Guangzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Defei","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Public Administration, South China University of Technology","place":["Guangzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","first-page":"267","volume-title":"Advances in Experimental Social Psychology","author":"Adams","year":"1965"},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"2009","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jpubeco.2003.07.006","article-title":"Inequality and happiness: are Europeans and Americans different?","volume":"88","author":"Alesina","year":"2004","journal-title":"J. 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