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Gratitude and Late Adolescents’ School Well-being: The Mediating Role of Materialism

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Abstract

Although existing studies on adolescent well-being have revealed a positive relationship between gratitude and global subjective well-being, little research investigates whether the findings could be applied to domain-specific of subjective well-being, such as school well-being, and why this linkage arises. The present study addresses this gap by examining the effect of gratitude on school well-being, and the mediation of materialism. Participants were 764 late adolescents who completed measures of gratitude, materialism, and school well-being. Results showed that gratitude had a positive effect on school well-being, which was partially mediated by materialism. Furthermore, a multi-group analysis suggested that the pathway from gratitude to school well-being was significantly different between genders. Practical implications and limitations of this study are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (71302141), The Project of Philosophy and Social Science Research of Colleges and Universities of Jiangsu Province (2010ZDIXM055; 2015SJD431), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2013M541761), and Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD).

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  1. School of Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China

    Hongyan Jiang

  2. Department of Psychology, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, China

    Peizhen Sun & Mengjie Pan

  3. Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Yeyi Liu

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  1. Hongyan Jiang
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Correspondence to Peizhen Sun.

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Jiang, H., Sun, P., Liu, Y. et al. Gratitude and Late Adolescents’ School Well-being: The Mediating Role of Materialism. Soc Indic Res 127, 1363–1376 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-1007-5

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