Abstract
Previous research has found that gratitude, which is a central concept or practice in many religions and spiritual traditions, benefits an individual's well-being and may reduce symptoms of depression (Emmons & Stern in Journal of Clinical Psychology 69: 846–855, 2013). The current research utilized two different samples from the United States (i.e., undergraduate students at a large, public university, and a national sample of individuals formerly raised by custodial grandparents and/or through foster care obtained through Amazon Mechanical Turk) to examine the relation between religiosity and well-being. Measures used included life satisfaction (Satisfaction with Life Scale), symptoms of depression (Center for Epidemiological Studies of Depression Scale-Revised), and gratitude (the Gratitude Questionnaire-6 Item Form, GQ-6; and the Transpersonal Gratitude Scale). The relation between religiosity (the Stearns-McKinney Assessment of Religious Traits) and psychological well-being (i.e., life satisfaction and depression) was mediated by gratitude among adults formerly raised by custodial grandparents and undergraduate college students at a large Southeastern university. These results indicate that gratitude may be an important factor in understanding the relation between religiosity and depressive symptoms and life satisfaction.
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The authors complied with all APA ethical guidelines in the production of this work. IRB approval was obtained from Mississippi State University before recruiting participants (IRB approval number 16–246).
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See Figs.
Unstandardized regression coefficients and p-value for the relation between religiosity (i.e., SMART) and wellbeing (i.e., CESD-R, SWL) in mediation models with scores on the GQ-6 and the TGS as mediators in the PRP Sample. A simple regression between the IV and DV is presented first, then the model is presented with the mediating variable included
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Unstandardized regression coefficients and p-value for the relation between religiosity (i.e., SMART) and wellbeing (i.e., CESD-R, SWL) in mediation models with scores on the GQ-6 and the TGS as mediators in the PRP Sample. A simple regression between the IV and DV is presented first, then the model is presented with the mediating variable included
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Lantz, E.D., Stearns, M., McKay, I. et al. The Mediating Effect of Gratitude on the Relation Between Religiosity and Well-being in Samples of Undergraduate Students and Adults Formerly Raised by Grandparent Caregivers. J Happiness Stud 23, 969–984 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-021-00435-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-021-00435-9