Objective–Subjective Socioeconomic Status Configurations, Self-Acceptance, and Adolescent Prosocial Moral Reasoning: A Response Surface Analysis

Background: Objective and subjective socioeconomic status capture distinct aspects of adolescents’ socioeconomic experience, but their joint associations with prosocial moral reasoning and self-acceptance remain unclear. This study examined objective–subjective socioeconomic status configurations in relation to prosocial moral reasoning and self-acceptance, and assessed statistical indirect associations through self-acceptance. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 1888 Chinese adolescents aged 12 to 18 years. Participants completed measures of objective socioeconomic status, subjective socioeconomic status, self-acceptance, and prosocial moral reasoning. Polynomial regression and response surface analysis were used, with indirect associations tested using 5000 bootstrap resamples. Results: The full polynomial regression model predicting prosocial moral reasoning was significant, but explained variance was small, and response surface parameters did not indicate significant direct congruence or incongruence effects. Socioeconomic status configurations were more clearly associated with self-acceptance. Self-acceptance was higher when objective and subjective socioeconomic status were both relatively high and when subjective socioeconomic status exceeded objective socioeconomic status. Self-acceptance was positively associated with prosocial moral reasoning, and bootstrap analyses showed significant but very small indirect associations through self-acceptance. Conclusions: Objective–subjective socioeconomic status configurations showed limited direct associations with overall prosocial moral reasoning but clearer associations with self-acceptance. Given the cross-sectional design and small effect sizes, the findings should be interpreted as modest statistical associations rather than evidence of causal mediation.