Why Do People with High Dispositional Gratitude Tend to Experience High Life Satisfaction? A Broaden-and-Build Theory Pe
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Why Do People with High Dispositional Gratitude Tend to Experience High Life Satisfaction? A Broaden‑and‑Build Theory Perspective Yanhui Xiang1,2 · Rong Yuan1,2 Accepted: 29 August 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Life satisfaction refers to people’s overall judgements on their own life experiences, which is considered to be a relative stable aspect of subjective well-being. Though a robust of literature has identified that gratitude predicts life satisfaction positively, the underlying mechanism remains to be explored from a powerful theoretical perspective. Following the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, this study explored the mediation role of benign envy, malicious envy and mindfulness in the relationship between dispositional gratitude and life satisfaction among 991 Chinese undergraduates (692 females and 299 males; M = 19.05, SD = 1.543, from 17 to 26 years old). The results revealed that benign envy, malicious envy and mindfulness were mediators between dispositional gratitude and life satisfaction. Importantly, dispositional gratitude linked to life satisfaction through the sequential intermediary of “mindfulness→benign envy” and “mindfulness→malicious envy”. These findings are not only valuable for understanding how dispositional gratitude is linked to life satisfaction according to the broaden-and-build theory, but also contributes to the development of psychological intervention programs aiming at improving people’s life satisfaction. Keywords Dispositional gratitude · Benign envy · Malicious envy · Mindfulness · Life satisfaction
Yanhui Xiang and Rong Yuan authors are the co-first authors. * Yanhui Xiang [email protected] Rong Yuan [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China
2
Cognition and Human Behavior Key Laboratory of Hunan Province, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China
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Y. Xiang, R. Yuan
1 Introduction Subjective well-being, including people’s cognitive and affective evaluations on their own lives (Diener 2000), is a key field of positive psychology research. Life satisfaction is the cognitive component of subjective well-being, referring to people’s overall judgements on their own life experiences (Diener et al. 2013). Life satisfaction is considered to be more stable than the affective aspects and thus captures more research interest (Diener et al. 1999; Eid and Diener 2004). Robust beneficial outcomes of life satisfaction have been found, such as better health and increased longevity (Boehm et al. 2015; Collins et al. 2009; Diener and Chan 2011). Therefore, it is of practical significance to promote life satisfaction.
1.1 Dispositional Gratitude and Life Satisfaction As indicated by meta-analysis, personality traits are one of the best predictors of subjective well-being (DeNeve and Cooper 1998; Steel et al. 2008). In addition to broad personality traits (e.g., Big Five; Schimmack et al. 2002), narrow ones like trait gratitude have also captured attention and been shown
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