Search Results (13)

This study aimed to identify the relationship between grateful disposition and the subjective happiness of young adults; it examined a sequential double mediating effect model of social support and positive interpretation on this relationship. The study participants included 389 male and female Korean young adults. The Korean version of Gratitude Questionnaire-6, a modified subscale of the SU Mental Health Test, Iverson et al.’s scale for social support, and the Subjective Happiness Scale were used. PROCESS Macro 3.5 Model 6 was used to analyze the double mediating effect. The correlation analysis showed that grateful disposition was positively correlated with social support, positive interpretation, and subjective happiness in young adults. Moreover, social support was positively correlated with positive interpretation and subjective happiness, whereas positive interpretation was positively correlated with subjective happiness. In addition, the sequential mediating effect of social support and positive interpretation on grateful disposition and the subjective happiness of young adults was significant. This study confirmed the determinant roles of social support and positive interpretation in grateful disposition and the subjective happiness of young adults, providing useful information for planning future studies and developing education materials and interventions for cultivating grateful disposition in childhood and promoting happiness in young adults. Full article

The possibility of positive psychological changes after cancer, namely, posttraumatic growth, is a growing field of research. Identifying personality traits and coping strategies related to posttraumatic growth may help find vulnerable individuals as well as promote helpful coping strategies to help more patients make positive changes at an early stage. The aim of this systematic literature review is to provide an overview of the quantitative data on coping strategies and personality traits associated with posttraumatic growth in patients with cancer and cancer survivors as well as the methods used in included studies. A systematic literature search was conducted using five databases (PubMed, PubPsych, PsycInfo, Web of Science, and PSYNDEXplus). The 70 reports of included studies assessed posttraumatic growth using questionnaires in a sample of patients with cancer or survivors. In addition, associations with a personality trait or coping strategy had to be examined cross-sectionally or longitudinally. All 1698 articles were screened for titles and abstracts by two authors, after which disputed articles were reviewed by a third author. Afterwards, articles were screened for full texts. Most studies had a cross-sectional design and used a sample of patients with breast cancer. Coping strategies have been researched more than personality factors. The personality traits of resilience, hardiness, dispositional positive affectivity, and dispositional gratitude seem to be related to posttraumatic growth, while the Big Five personality traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) have been less researched and/or seem to be unrelated. The use of social support, religious coping, positive reframing, and reflection during illness as coping strategies seems to be related to posttraumatic growth. The findings can be used for the development of interventions. Future studies should investigate associations longitudinally. Full article

The authors used a prospective design to investigate how gratitude to God predicts religious well-being over time. Gratitude to God is a central aspect of monotheistic religions, and thus may be particularly important to the religious/spiritual well-being of believers. Participants completed online measures of trait and state gratitude to God, along with spiritual well-being, nearness to God, and religious commitment scales over a one-to-two-month period. General well-being, trait gratitude, and the Big Five personality traits were also assessed. After controlling baseline levels, trait gratitude and the Big Five personality traits, dispositional gratitude to God at Time 1 predicted increased religious well-being, nearness to God, and religious commitment at Time 2. Although gratitude to God was significantly related to general well-being variables in cross-sectional analyses, it did not predict these variables over time. Validity data for the gratitude to God measures are also presented. The results suggest that gratitude to God is important to religious/spiritual well-being, and gratitude to God may be a critical variable for research on positive psychology and the psychology of religion/spirituality. Full article

Although empirical reports draw attention to the pathological aspects of the functioning of the homeless, recent studies show the benefits related to the elevating roles of different positive phenomena in coping with difficulties for this group of people. The main goal was to verify whether there is a direct relationship between religiosity and gratitude among the homeless, and whether this association is moderated by the reported help-seeking since both religiosity and gratitude seem to play an important role in homeless people’s lives. In total, 189 homeless persons participated in the study. Their mean age was M = 56.55 (SD = 12.39; range = 27–86). Most respondents were men (n = 119; 63%). The Scale of Religious Attitude Intensity and the Gratitude Questionnaire were used. The outcomes presented a statistically significant positive correlation between religious attitude and gratitude (r = 0.326***, p = 0.001). Help-seeking played a moderatory role in this relationship. Therefore, it can be assumed that the relationship between religiosity attitude intensity and dispositional gratitude is stronger when homeless persons seek specific help from other people or institutions compared to when they do not look for assistance. Homeless people, overcoming their limitations by actively asking for help, can strengthen their bonds with God (faith, religiosity) and with others (dispositional gratitude). Full article

In comforting or distressing circumstances, individuals tend to have various perceptions of themselves. It seems that religious comfort and religious distress correlate differently with people’s self-esteem. Since the relationship between religiosity and self-esteem is not only direct but can be mediated by other factors that are recognized as buffers against adverse situations, our main goal was to verify whether dispositional gratitude may have an indirect effect on the association between both variables. The research involved data from 254 participants aged 18 to 25 (M = 21.24; SD = 2.09) and included 192 women (76%) and 62 men (24%). To measure the title variables, we used: the Religious Comfort and Strain Scale (RCSS), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), and the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ-6). The results showed that people who consider religion as a source of comfort express positive attitudes toward the self and recognize others’ kindness, as well. In contrast, people who consider religiosity as a cause of fear, stress, and internal strain tend to display a lower subjective sense of personal worth and lower appreciation of the positivity around them. Moreover, gratitude had a mediatory effect on the relationships between religious comfort/negative emotions toward God and self-esteem. Full article

Satisfaction with life as a judgmental cognitive process can be negatively influenced by appraisals of daily events such as hassles. Trait-gratitude—a tendency to appraise, recognize and respond to life events through being grateful—is a determinant of mental health and well-being, and has been shown to be related to the positive appraisal of life. The aim of the current study was to investigate the moderating role of trait-gratitude in the relationship between daily hassles and satisfaction with life. In the process of carrying out this study, the French version of the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ-6) was validated. A total of 328 French undergraduates completed questionnaires measuring gratitude, satisfaction with life, and daily hassles to test the main hypothesis. They also completed optimism, coping strategies, depression, and anxiety questionnaires in order to assess the convergent validity of the French version of the GQ-6. First, the results showed satisfactory psychometric properties of the Gratitude Questionnaire. Second, the results indicated the moderating role of trait-gratitude in the relationship between daily hassles disturbance and satisfaction with life. This study further documents the role of gratitude as a determinant of well-being and provides French-speaking clinicians and researchers with a useful tool to measure grateful disposition. Full article

Gratitude journaling has been used to improve grateful disposition. However, there is only limited data available on its application experience. This study aimed to: (1) explore the experiences of nursing students who have participated in gratitude journaling; and (2) assess students’ views of gratitude journaling as a nursing intervention. This study implemented an eight-week program of gratitude journaling with fourth-year nursing students who took a mental health psychiatric nursing course at a South Korean university. Following the eight weeks, students reflected on their gratitude journaling experience in a reflective essay. Using content analysis, 53 essays were analyzed. Five categories were identified from the reflective essay, as follows: “A new beginning”, “The engine that motivates continued participation: gratitude sharing”, “The process driving change”, “Changes brought about by gratitude”, and “Self-reflection”. Based on this experience, nursing students believed that it is important to promote steady participation when administering gratitude journaling as a nursing intervention. The study findings suggest that the gratitude journaling not only helped with nursing students’ perspective, emotional, and behavioral aspects and stress management, but also provided an opportunity to advance a step further based on self-reflection. Full article

Materialism at work refers to a higher importance attached to extrinsic (e.g., money, fame, image) versus intrinsic (self-development, affiliation, community participation) employees’ ‘aspirations’. Research from self-determination theory has consistently found that materialism at work is strongly detrimental for both employees and organizations. For example, materialism is negatively associated with lower job satisfaction and engagement and positively associated with higher turnover intentions and job insecurity. Unfortunately, there are no viable strategies for reducing materialism in the workplace yet. In this sense, based on emergent research in psychology, we theorized that dispositional gratitude—a key construct within the Positive Organizational Psychology field—could be a protecting factor against materialism. Further, we conducted a three-wave longitudinal design among a large sample of Chilean workers (n = 1841) to test, for the first time, the longitudinal link between gratitude and materialism. We used two novel methodologies: A cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) to test between-person changes and a trait-state-occasion model (TSO) to test within-person changes. We found that both the CLPM as well as the TSO models showed that gratitude at work prospectively predicted further lower workplace materialism. Specifically, the CLPM shows that individuals with higher than average gratitude at Ti, are more likely to show lower than average materialism at Ti+1. The TSO shows that individuals with a higher than their usual level of gratitude at Ti are more likely to show a lower than their usual level of materialism at Ti+1. Important implications for materialism research as well as for the Positive Organizational Psychology field are discussed. Full article

Recently, studies linking the emotion of dispositional gratitude to cyberbullying have attracted attention. However, this is still a seminal research area that requires further scientific studies. Through longitudinal data, this study aims to analyze the mitigating effect of gratitude on cybervictimization and two indicators of adolescent subjective well-being, namely school and life satisfaction. To this end, 221 adolescents attending private schools in Peru (age: mean (M) = 12.09; standard deviation (SD) = 0.89) were selected to respond to a self-administered questionnaire in two waves that were six months apart. Descriptive data show that 27% of cybervictims also suffer other types of traditional bullying. The overlaps between forms of bullying contribute to higher probabilities of experiencing low school and life satisfaction compared to non-victims after six months. The results of the moderation analysis show that experience high gratitude help students to maintain stable levels of life satisfaction regardless of the prevalence of cyberbullying after six months The results are discussed in terms of the relevance of fostering gratitude from early ages. Full article

Future time perspective, perceived social support, and dispositional gratitude are topics of interest that positively influence people’s psychological health. Although gratitude has been positively associated with future time perspective and social support, this is the first study to investigate its mediating role in the relationships of future time perspective with perceived social support. A convenience sample of 1256 adults (55.1% women), mean age 34.55 years (SD = 13.92), completed self-reported measures of future time perspective (conceptualized as remaining time and opportunities), dispositional gratitude, and received and given social support. Results indicated that higher dispositional gratitude mediated the relationship between the perception of more remaining time and opportunities and greater perception of received and given social support. These findings highlight the importance of considering dispositional characteristics to better understand the impact of perceived future on the individuals’ subjective experience of social exchanges. Interventions addressing future time perspective and dispositional gratitude might have beneficial effects on individuals’ social well-being. Full article

Gratitude may be defined as a personal positive tendency to recognize and respond with gratitude to positive experiences. It has been extensively described within personal relationship literature, showing its correlations with life satisfaction and decreased psychopathology. We propose here to consider gratitude as both a personal and an organizational value able to improve job performance and job satisfaction. The specific aim is twofold: to explore how public administration workers are used to express and perceive gratitude in the workplace, and to validate a serial mediation model, in which dispositional, collective, and relational gratitude are predictors of job satisfaction and job performance. We have designed a mix-method study, with a survey and a diary study, choosing to collect data also on a daily basis because we were interested in gratitude exchanges in work contexts using the event-sampling data method. Nine employees from several Italian public administrations completed a gratitude diary for ten working days in the initial qualitative part of the study. Afterwards, a sample of 96 Italian public administration employees filled in a questionnaire with measures related to job satisfaction, job performance, and three dimensions of gratitude: dispositional, collective, and relational. Results confirm that the three types of gratitude are predictors of job performance and job satisfaction and this relation has been tested in a serial mediation model. This investigation on gratitude has practical implications for the planning of training interventions framed in the positive psychology context. Full article

An extensive review of the psychological literature shows that interactions between religious/spiritual (R/S) struggles and other aspects of human functioning are complex and affected by “third” factors. Still, we have only a few studies that confirm R/S struggles as a source of well-being and indicate the ways in which it happens. In the present study, we aimed to verify whether the relationship between R/S struggles and life satisfaction was mediated by dispositional gratitude that seems to offer protection in times of adversity and turmoil. The sample consisted of 440 Roman Catholics (331 women) from Poland aged between 18 and 40. We applied the Religious Comfort and Strain Scale, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and the Gratitude Questionnaire. In line with our hypotheses, it was confirmed that respondents with higher life satisfaction were more likely to display a higher sense of trust in God. They also declared a lower fear/guilt and perception of God as abandoning people. Gratitude correlated positively and significantly with religious comfort, and negatively with emotions towards God and social interactions surrounding religion. Moreover, it can be affirmed that dispositional gratitude mediated the relationship between three of four dimensions of religious strain and life satisfaction: religious comfort, negative emotions towards God, and negative social interactions surrounding religion. Full article

Self-transcendent feelings such as gratitude, compassion, and awe are highly relevant for human societies. So far, empirical research has focused more on the relational aspects of these feelings (concrete persons), and less on the spiritual aspects referring to the Sacred in a person’s life. We intended to validate an extended version of the former three-item Gratitude/Awe scale. This extended scale was designed with a focus on the experiential aspects of being moved and touched by certain moments and places/nature, on related reactions of pausing with daily activities, and on the subsequent feelings of awe and gratitude. Enrolling 183 test persons (67% women; 59% with a Christian confession) in a cross-sectional study, we can confirm that the seven-item Gratitude/Awe scale (GrAw-7) has good psychometric properties (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.82) and moderate correlation (r = 0.42) with grateful disposition (GQ-6 questionnaire). Structured equation modeling (SEM) confirmed that both constructs, although moderately related, are different. While Gratitude/Awe was best predicted by the frequency of meditation practice, a grateful disposition was best predicted by the frequency of praying and by general life satisfaction. The GrAw-7 scale is not contaminated with specific religious topics or quality of life issues, and can be easily implemented in larger studies. Full article