Researching the Malleability Narrative on Professional Ideals: The Role of Internal Attribution in the Relations Between Media and Adolescents’ Well-Being

ABSTRACT Research has rarely looked into links between adolescents’ media use, internal attribution of professional success, and well-being. The current study among 940 late adolescents (M = 17.21 years old, SD = .94; 60.9% girls) found that exposure to malleable professional ideals in traditional as well as social media was positively related to internal attribution of professional success, which was in turn positively related to professional performance pressure but negatively related to depressive feelings. Also direct positive relations between traditional and social media and performance pressure were found. These are the first empirical results supporting the malleability framework.