From pressure to proactivity: how psychological resilience and future time perspective mediate the relationship between job stress and personal growth initiative among Chinese pre-service teachers

The shifting demographic landscape in China, particularly the declining birth rate, has prompted a contraction in the education job market. This creates a high-pressure environment for pre-service teachers. Drawing on the Challenge–Hindrance Stressor Framework, this study interrogates the mechanism linking job Stress (JS) to personal growth initiative (PGI) among students in vocational teacher-training programs. Specifically, we examined how JS is associated with PGI through the mediating pathways of psychological resilience (PR) and future time perspective (FTP). Using a cross-sectional design, survey data from 953 pre-service teachers (predominantly female, aged 19–22) were analyzed via partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Diverging from the traditional “resource depletion” view, the results revealed that JS positively predicted both PR ( β = 0.404, p < 0.001) and FTP ( β = 0.369, p < 0.001), suggesting that participants appraised the structural pressure as a motivating challenge rather than a hindrance. While both mediators were significantly associated with PGI, FTP exhibited a substantially stronger predictive relevance ( β = 0.642) compared to PR ( β = 0.314). Overall, the model accounted for 83.4% of the variance in PGI. These findings indicate that under specific developmental and cultural contexts, external pressure may paradoxically mobilize internal Resources, initiating a “gain-spiral” rather than resource exhaustion. This underscores the importance of considering temporal cognition and cultural values when interpreting how vocational students navigate structural employment disadvantages.