感恩对青少年生活满意度的影响:领悟社会支持的中介作用及压力性生活事件的调节作用

The Effect of Gratitude on Adolescents' Life Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Perceived Social Support and the Moderating Role of Stressful Life Events

采用问卷法调查了1319名青少年,考察了领悟社会支持在感恩与青少年生活满意度之间关系的中介作用以及该过程是否受到压力性生活事件的调节。结果发现:(1)领悟社会支持在感恩与青少年生活满意度之间起着部分中介作用;(2)领悟社会支持的中介作用受到压力性生活事件的调节,压力性生活事件调节了感恩—领悟社会支持—生活满意度这一中介过程的后半路径。因此,感恩对青少年生活满意度的影响是有调节的中介效应。研究结论对提高青少年生活满意度具有理论价值和参考价值。

Life satisfaction is an important construct in positive psychology. Considered to be the key indicator of subjective well - be- ing. life satisfaction is a subjective evaluation of the overall quality of life （Proctor, Linley, ＆ Maltby,2009 ;Sun, Zheng, ＆ Yu,2009, 2010; Watkins, Woodward, Stone, ＆ Kohs, 2003）. Life satisfaction is more than just an outcome of various psychological states; it is also an influential predictor of psychological states and psychosocial systems （ Proctor et al. , 2009）. Life satisfaction is associated with depression, self-esteem, self- efficacy, suicide, substance abuse, violence behavior and academic achievement. It is necessary to explore factors that influence life satisfaction and the mechanism whereby such factors influence life satisfaction. The present study was to investigate whether perceived social support mediated the relationship between gratitude and life satisfac- tion, and whether stressful life events moderated this mediation effect. Participants were 1,319 adolescents （677 boys and 642 girls） who attended middle and high schools, and they completed the gratitude questionnaire, the perceived social support questionnaire, the stressful life events scale, and the life satisfaction questionnaire. The results indicated that： （ 1 ） perceived social support partially mediated the relationship between gratitude and life satisfaction. Gratitude not only directly influenced life satisfaction, but also indirectly influenced life satisfaction through perceived social support. （2） Stressful life events moderated the mediated effect of perceived social support. That is, stressful life events moderated the second path of the mediation. The indirect associations between gratitude and life satisfaction varied as a function of stressful life events. The relationship between perceived social support and life satisfaction was significant when levels of stressful life events were low, whereas the relationship between perceived social support and life satisfaction was not significant when levels of stressful life events were high. For adolescents low in stressful life events, higher perceived social support led to higher life satisfaction. By contrast, for adolescents high in stressful life events, there was no significant effect of perceived social support on life satisfaction. With stressful life events in- creasing, the effect of perceived social support on life satisfaction weakened. Perceived social support served as a stress - vulnerability factor. Therefore, the effect of gratitude on adolescents＇ life satisfaction was moderated by the mediating effect. The present study not only revealed how gratitude influenced life satisfaction, but also revealed when this effect was strong. These findings had important theoretical and reference values and may contribute to increasing adolescents＇ life satisfaction. Firstly, we should attach importance to the effect of gratitude on life satisfaction. Secondly, we should help adolescents to improve the level of perceived social support, and adequately reduce adolescents＇ stress.