International Journal of Public Health Science (IJPHS) Vol. 11, No. 2, June 2022, pp. 640~645 ISSN: 2252-8806, DOI: 10.11591/ijphs.v11i2.21417  640 Journal homepage: http://ijphs.iaescore.com Social support and psychological wellbeing among urbanites during the pandemic: mattering and life satisfaction Jun Kit Tan 1 , Kususanto Ditto Prihadi 2 , Prakrisno Satrio 3 1 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral Science, HELP University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Science and Liberal Arts, UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 3 Faculty of Psychology, Universitas 45, Surabaya, Indonesia Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: Received Oct 10, 2021 Revised Jan 2, 2022 Accepted Feb 22, 2022 The change of social interaction pattern amidst the implementation of social distancing policies during the pandemic had altered the way individuals evaluated themselves and their social environment, including the way they develop perceived social support (PSS) that would lead to another change in the way they develop their satisfaction with life (SWL). This might have affected the development of their psychological wellbeing (PWB), which is highly contingent upon psychosocial constructs. Another variable that might alter the formation of PWB is the sense that we matter to others (Mattering), which was also altered by the limitation of in-person interactions. We purposively recruited 403 Malaysian urban adults affected by the social distancing policies by having to study or work from home, to respond to our survey in order to test the hypothesis that the SWL would fully mediate the association between PSS and PWB among individuals with higher levels of mattering. The results of the bootstrap analysis with 5,000 samples and 95% confident interval supported our hypothesis, with a caveat that the mediation of SWL also occurred among individuals with moderate levels of mattering. PSS was still a significant predictor of PWB when controlling for mattering and SWL, which indicated that the mediation of SWL was only partially occurred. Keywords: Mattering Perceived social support Psychological wellbeing Satisfaction with life Social distancing policy This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license. Corresponding Author: Kususanto Ditto Prihadi Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Science and Liberal Arts, UCSI University No.1 Taman Connaught, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Email: ditto@usm.my 1. INTRODUCTION Social distancing policy amidst the COVID-19 outbreak brought few notable changes among the affected individuals, such as eating habits, physical activities, sleep quality, and the pattern of social [1], [2] The belief that we are socially supported is contingent upon two of the aforementioned elements, namely the pattern of social interaction as well as the physical activities [3], [4]. Furthermore, the two aforementioned elements, as well as the perceived social support (PSS) was known as significant predictors of psychological well-being (PWB) [5], [6]; thus, while many studies suggested that the pandemic was the major predictor of psychological wellness issues, it is likely that the implementation of the social distancing policy was another risk factor because its power to alter the pattern of social interaction. Contextually, satisfaction with life (SWL) was reported to be contingent upon PSS [7]–[10], and the development of SWL among Malaysian urbanites was reported to be different during the movement control order (MCO), an implementation of the social distancing policy amidst the outbreak of COVID-19 [11]. The alteration of SWL as a construct that is predicted by PSS led us to a hypothesis that the development of PWB