In higher music education, music performance anxiety (MPA) is a common phenomenon (Nielsen et al., 2017). For university music students, the need to improve their technical skills and take part in frequent performances, examinations, and assessments often brings constant pressure. Studies have shown that MPA is not just a feeling of nervousness. It involves emotional, cognitive, physical, and behavioral reactions, such as a fast heartbeat, muscle tension, lack of concentration, and negative self-evaluation (Papageorgi, 2020; Kenny, 2023). For many music students, MPA can reduce the quality of their performance and weaken confidence (Wang and Yang, 2024). Over time, it may also affect their mental health, professional goals, and motivation to continue studying music (Du et al., 2025). As they are both learners and performers, many students have not yet learned effective ways to manage MPA in performance situations. These students need proper support and help to cope with MPA and adjust to university life. If they do not receive help, MPA may become worse in important performances and may even develop into a long-term psychological problem (Kinney et al., 2025).

Seeking help is a protective factor against MPA (Rickwood et al., 2005). However, this behavior is not common among music students. Many students prefer to handle MPA on their own because they fear being seen as weak or doubt the usefulness of professional services (Gulliver et al., 2010). Limited awareness of available resources and low confidence in seeking help further decrease their willingness to reach out for support (Shim et al., 2022). Help-seeking intention plays a crucial role in understanding students’ responses to MPA because it represents the motivation and readiness to seek help before any actual behavior occurs (Baldofski et al., 2024). A strong intention to seek help often predicts future help-seeking behavior, making it a key indicator for early intervention (Adams et al., 2022). In this study, formal help-seeking intention (FHSI) refers to students’ willingness to ask for help from psychologists, counselors, mental health professionals, teachers, or other university services, while informal help-seeking intention (IHSI) refers to seeking support from friends, peers, or family members (Lu et al., 2025b). Examining help-seeking intention rather than behavior provides insight into potential barriers and facilitators before students take action, which is essential for designing preventive and supportive strategies (Zhao et al., 2025). Understanding these factors is important for developing strategies that encourage music students to seek appropriate support and better manage MPA.

According to the Stress and Coping Theory (SCT; Lazarus and Folkman, 1984), people use different coping resources to deal with stress, and these resources can shape how they respond to stressful events. In the case of MPA, seeking help from others can be viewed as a positive and active coping response (Kinney et al., 2025). Social support, as an important external coping resource, can provide emotional comfort, practical advice, and a sense of belonging (Taylor, 2012; Acoba, 2024). For music students, such support often comes from parents, teachers, and peers who understand the challenges of performance and study. When students feel supported by people around them, they are more likely to view help-seeking as acceptable and useful (Vidourek et al., 2014; Li et al., 2025). Previous research has shown that social support increases students’ confidence to reach out for both formal and informal help when needed. Empirical studies have consistently confirmed this association. For instance, social support from parents, friends, and peers has been found to play a key role in promoting help-seeking behaviors among young people (Wahlin and Deane, 2012; Maiuolo et al., 2019). A systematic review also identified social support as one of the strongest predictors of help-seeking (Gulliver et al., 2010). Moreover, research has shown that interpersonal support can reduce MPA and promote help-seeking among music students (Zhang and Jenatabadi, 2024). Therefore, in the context of MPA, social support can act as a protective factor that encourages adaptive coping and strengthens students’ willingness to seek help.

Within SCT framework, self-compassion can be viewed as an internal psychological resource that complements external support. It refers to an individual’s capacity for self-empathy, openness to emotional distress, and the ability to bestow care and kindness upon oneself (Neff, 2003). For music students, who are often under pressure to perform perfectly, self-compassion can help them respond to MPA and mistakes with understanding rather than shame (Zhang and Jenatabadi, 2024). Social support may foster self-compassion by creating a sense of emotional safety (Ross and Ross, 2025). When students experience acceptance and empathy from others, they are more likely to treat themselves with the same understanding (Ross and Ross, 2025). In turn, higher self-compassion can reduce self-blame and increase openness to seeking help when facing MPA. Empirical research has consistently shown that individuals with higher levels of self-compassion demonstrate better emotional adjustment, stronger self-regulation, and greater engagement in adaptive coping behaviors such as help-seeking (Biber and Ellis, 2019; Chiang et al., 2021). Recent research grounded in Stress and Coping Theory further suggests that social support and self-compassion jointly promote adaptive outcomes among university students by facilitating stress management and psychological adjustment (Wang and Wang, 2025). Moreover, self-compassion has been linked to a higher likelihood of seeking professional help when experiencing stressful events (Mak et al., 2011; Brenner et al., 2018). Therefore, self-compassion may be a mediating factor that explains how social support influences students’ willingness to seek help for MPA. It helps translate supportive experiences into greater openness and confidence in coping with MPA.

From the perspective of SCT (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984), resilience is viewed as an inner strength that helps individuals adjust to difficulties, recover after failure, and keep emotional balance under stress (Lu et al., 2024a). It encourages people to face problems with positive coping approaches, enabling them not only to endure challenges but also to learn and grow from them (Chen et al., 2023; Scheffert and Henson, 2025). Studies have shown that individuals with higher resilience tend to adopt more effective coping methods and are more willing to seek help when dealing with mental health concerns or performance-related pressure (Macía et al., 2021). Social support can enhance resilience by offering encouragement, stability, and a feeling of connection (Hanımoğlu, 2025). A supportive environment builds confidence in one’s ability to handle stress and helps people see help-seeking as a proactive and constructive step rather than a sign of weakness (Wiedermann et al., 2023). Research has consistently found that social support is positively linked with resilience among both adolescents and individuals exposed to stress (Sippel et al., 2015). More recent findings also suggest that resilience can act as a bridge between perceived social support and the intention to seek professional help. For instance, a study involving young Australians found that resilience mediated the relationship between social support and help-seeking intention (Ishikawa et al., 2023). In the context of MPA, students who feel supported by teachers, peers, or family members are likely to build stronger resilience. This inner capacity allows them to manage anxiety more effectively and increases their openness to seek professional or peer help when necessary.

Grounded in SCT (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984), the present study conceptualizes help-seeking intention as an adaptive coping outcome shaped by cognitive appraisal processes. In the context of MPA, students first engage in primary appraisal by perceiving performance demands as threatening or stressful. During secondary appraisal, individuals evaluate the controllability of MPA and the availability of coping resources (Li et al., 2025). At this stage, social support functions as a key external coping resource, enhancing perceived controllability and available coping assistance (Ross and Ross, 2025). Importantly, within the Chinese cultural context, strong face concerns and stigma surrounding psychological help may weaken the direct translation of social support into formal help-seeking. Under such conditions, the effects of social support may be more likely to operate indirectly, through the activation of internal psychological resources, providing a theoretical basis for examining self-compassion and resilience as mediating mechanisms.

Anchored in SCT and the current literature review, the present study aims to investigate the association between social support and FHSI/IHSI regarding MPA among Chinese music students. It also tests the mediating role of self-compassion and resilience between such association. The following hypotheses have been formulated: (H1) self-compassion would significantly mediate the association between social support and IHSI regarding MPA; (H2) resilience would significantly mediate the association between social support and IHSI regarding MPA; (H3) self-compassion would significantly mediate the association between social support and FHSI regarding MPA; (H4) resilience would significantly mediate the association between social support and FHSI regarding MPA.

This study investigated how social support relates to both FHSI and IHSI regarding MPA among Chinese music students, focusing on the mediating roles of resilience and self-compassion. Results showed that social support was not directly linked to FHSI; instead, higher social support was associated with higher resilience and self-compassion, which were in turn positively associated with FHSI. The indirect paths through resilience and self-compassion were statistically significant, supporting full mediations. For IHSI, social support displayed a positive direct association and, simultaneously, positive indirect associations via resilience and via self-compassion; both indirect paths were significant, indicating partial mediation. These patterns highlight the joint contribution of interpersonal resources and personal capacities to music students’ help-seeking intentions regarding MPA.

Sex differences emerged consistently across help-seeking types, with female students reporting higher FHSI and IHSI than male students. This pattern aligns with previous research indicating that women tend to express emotions more openly and experience less stigma when seeking interpersonal or professional support (Qiu et al., 2024). In contrast, male students may be more influenced by self-reliance norms, which can discourage help-seeking behaviors. These findings suggest the need for gender-sensitive interventions that normalize and encourage help-seeking among male students (McDermott et al., 2018). Perceived family financial situation and family structure also showed significant associations with FHSI and IHSI. Students who rated their family financial situation as average or good/very good were more likely to seek both formal and informal help than those reporting poor or very poor conditions. A positive financial perception may enhance individuals’ sense of efficacy, perceived access to services, and tolerance for potential costs of help-seeking (Rowan et al., 2013). Meanwhile, students from single-parent families reported lower IHSI, possibly due to reduced emotional resources, limited caregiver time, or stronger internalized independence norms (Lu et al., 2025b). Institutions could help mitigate these challenges by offering low-threshold, confidential, and peer-based mental health services tailored for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The mediating role of self-compassion in the relationship between social support and IHSI (H1) suggests that perceived social support enhances students’ capacity for self-kindness and acceptance, thereby reducing self-criticism and emotional suppression. Within the conservatory environment, where self-judgment and fear of evaluation are pervasive, self-compassion allows students to reinterpret emotional vulnerability as a normal and shared human experience rather than a personal failure (Neff, 2023). When individuals perceive warmth and acceptance from others, they internalize this acceptance and extend it toward themselves, which lowers anticipated shame and facilitates emotional disclosure to peers or close others (Sajadian et al., 2024). Particularly in the Chinese sociocultural context, where maintaining face and avoiding burdening others are culturally salient values, self-compassion may serve as an intrapersonal buffer that legitimizes emotional expression, thereby transforming social support into a psychological permission structure for informal help-seeking.

Similarly, the significant mediation of resilience in the association between social support and IHSI (H2) reveals that social connections foster adaptive coping capacities that encourage constructive engagement rather than avoidance. When students feel supported, they develop greater confidence in their ability to recover from stressors, viewing help-seeking as an active and resourceful response rather than a signal of inadequacy (Cao et al., 2024). Resilience reframes the experience of MPA from an uncontrollable threat to a manageable challenge, promoting approach-oriented coping behaviors such as seeking advice, feedback, or emotional validation from peers (Zhang and Jenatabadi, 2024). This interpretation is consistent with recent university-level research showing that performance-related anxiety can function as an intermediate mechanism linking psychological resources to adaptive academic outcomes, thereby supporting the logic of indirect pathways from internal resources to functional responses (Vasiou et al., 2025). Within the context of intensive musical training, resilience allows students to interpret seeking help as part of performance optimization (Arbinaga, 2023). It becomes a pragmatic strategy to enhance self-regulation and maintain artistic excellence, aligning help-seeking with the values of mastery and professionalism that characterize performance cultures (Mazzarolo et al., 2023).

The mediation of self-compassion in the relationship between social support and FHSI (H3) further emphasizes the role of self-directed kindness in overcoming internalized stigma. Formal help-seeking typically involves greater perceived risks, such as labeling, fear of being seen as weak, or concerns about professional reputation, especially in collectivistic cultures that prize self-control and perseverance (Ntumi et al., 2025). Social support signals social acceptance and normalizes emotional vulnerability, while self-compassion transforms this external validation into internal permission to seek professional care without self-blame (Chan and Tsui, 2025). By reducing shame and self-stigma, self-compassion allows students to view professional help not as an admission of failure but as a responsible act of self-care and growth (Cepni et al., 2024). This is particularly crucial for music students in China, where concerns about reputation and teacher evaluations often deter engagement with psychological services. Self-compassion thus acts as a moral and emotional bridge, converting the normative approval embedded in social support into genuine openness to formal mental health resources.

The mediating effect of resilience on the relationship between social support and FHSI (H4) reveals a complementary yet distinct psychological process. Whereas self-compassion primarily mitigates affective barriers to help-seeking, resilience fosters cognitive and behavioral readiness to take purposeful action. Resilient students are more likely to construe formal help as a strategic and competent response to stress, aligning with a problem-solving orientation rather than a defeatist narrative (Litt et al., 2025). Through resilience, the benefits of social support are internalized as a belief in one’s capacity to manage challenges effectively, which enhances motivation to engage with professional interventions when self-regulation alone is insufficient (Lu et al., 2025b). Within performance-oriented academic settings, resilient students tend to perceive counseling or psychological services as opportunities to refine regulation skills and maintain artistic functioning. This adaptive interpretation aligns help-seeking with the values of discipline and mastery, thereby integrating professional support into the broader framework of musical and personal development.

Taken together, the contrast between full mediation for FHSI and partial mediation for IHSI reflects a theoretically and culturally meaningful distinction. From the perspective of Stress and Coping Theory (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984), formal help-seeking represents a higher-cost coping option that requires more extensive secondary appraisal, including evaluations of self-worth, stigma, and coping competence. In the Chinese cultural context, strong face concerns and norms of emotional restraint may prevent social support from directly translating into formal help-seeking. Instead, social support appears to exert its influence by first enhancing self-compassion to reduce self-criticism and by strengthening resilience to increase perceived coping capacity, thereby indirectly facilitating engagement with professional help. In contrast, informal help-seeking from friends and family involves lower perceived social risk and aligns more closely with relational norms, allowing social support to exert both direct and indirect effects. This distinction helps explain why social support alone is sufficient to encourage informal help-seeking, whereas formal help-seeking depends more heavily on the transformation of external support into internal psychological resources.

Beyond the distinction between formal and informal help-seeking, our findings further indicate that self-compassion and resilience play different but related roles in how social support is associated with help-seeking intentions among Chinese music students. Self-compassion seems to work mainly on an emotional level, easing feelings of shame and fear that often prevent students from talking about their anxiety or seeking help. Resilience, on the other hand, strengthens a sense of control and the belief that challenges can be managed through active coping. In this way, social support is not only a source of comfort but also a foundation for developing internal motivation to seek help when needed. It is also possible that additional untested factors, such as perceived stigma, performance-related perfectionism, or coping style, may play parallel or sequential mediating roles (Xiong et al., 2024; Lu et al., 2025b). Future research could explore whether these variables interact with self-compassion and resilience to shape help-seeking processes more comprehensively. It should also be noted that, due to the cross-sectional design, alternative temporal sequences among the variables cannot be ruled out. For example, self-compassion or resilience may precede and shape individuals’ perceptions of available social support, or these personal and interpersonal resources may develop in parallel over time. Within the conservatory environment, where emotional restraint and achievement orientation are deeply ingrained, fostering such internal resources may help students reinterpret help-seeking as both culturally appropriate and instrumental to artistic growth.

While the statistical significance of the paths between social support, resilience, self-compassion, and help-seeking intentions was established, the relatively small effect sizes should be interpreted cautiously. This implies that, while the results are statistically significant, the practical impact of these findings in real-world applications may be limited, especially considering the small-to-moderate effect sizes. Therefore, interventions should not only focus on statistical outcomes but also consider the real-world relevance of these effects, ensuring that interventions lead to meaningful, actionable change.

From a practical standpoint, these findings suggest that interventions to alleviate MPA should address both relational and psychological dimensions. Programs that strengthen peer and teacher support systems may create the interpersonal foundation necessary for self-compassion and resilience to develop (Hu, 2023). Simultaneously, integrating self-compassion and resilience training into performance pedagogy through workshops, reflective practice, or mindfulness-based modules could enhance students’ capacity to engage with both informal and formal help-seeking pathways (Czajkowski et al., 2022). Ultimately, by illuminating the internal mechanisms linking social support to adaptive help-seeking, this study contributes to a more holistic understanding of mental health promotion in performance education and offers a culturally sensitive framework for supporting Chinese music students’ emotional well-being.

Despite its strengths, this study has several limitations. First, all variables were measured through self-report questionnaires, which may be affected by social desirability bias and response subjectivity. In particular, students may underreport psychological distress or overreport adaptive coping tendencies due to concerns about social evaluation. Second, the cross-sectional design limits causal interpretation, and the observed associations cannot be interpreted as evidence of directional or causal relationships; longitudinal or intervention studies are therefore needed to confirm the proposed relationships and examine changes in help-seeking intentions over time. Third, prior help-seeking behaviors and other potential mediators, such as perceived stigma, perfectionism, or coping style, were not included and may have influenced the observed associations. Fourth, the study examined help-seeking intentions rather than actual behaviors, and there is often a discrepancy between intention and action. In addition, although the brief resilience scale and the single-item measure of FHSI used in this study have demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties and are commonly adopted in large-scale survey research, their brevity may limit the conceptual breadth with which these constructs are captured. Finally, the sample consisted of music students from a limited number of Chinese conservatories, which may restrict the generalizability of the findings. Future research should address these limitations by employing longitudinal or multi-source designs and by extending the proposed model to students in other artistic domains (e.g., theatre, dance, or visual arts), or through comparative studies across different forms of arts education, to examine whether the identified mechanisms operate similarly across artistic contexts.

This study examined how social support influences formal and informal help-seeking intentions for MPA among Chinese music students, emphasizing the mediating roles of resilience and self-compassion. The results demonstrated that social support indirectly promoted formal help-seeking through both mediators, while its effect on informal help-seeking was partly direct and partly mediated. These findings suggest that the benefits of social support extend beyond external reassurance, functioning through the development of inner psychological resources that motivate proactive coping and help-seeking behavior. By identifying resilience and self-compassion as key mechanisms, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of how interpersonal and intrapersonal factors jointly shape students’ responses to performance-related distress. Practically, the results support the value of integrating social, emotional, and psychological skill development into conservatory training to foster adaptive coping and encourage help-seeking as a normal component of professional musicianship.