The Role of Gratitude and Self-esteem in Predicting Psychological Well-being

Page: 207-211
Rita Karmakar and Atreyee Bhattacharyya (Amity Institute of Psychology and Allied Sciences, Amity University, Kolkata, West Bengal)

From the past few decades empirical studies have explored the interrelationships between gratitude, self-esteem and psychological well-being. Studies have also unveiled potential variation in the relationships providing a number of evidence showing a negative as well as non significant relationship between the studied variables. From this standpoint we aimed to explore the extent to which gratitude and self-esteem could predict psychological well-being. The sample comprised of 210 young adults (100 males and 110 females) from West Bengal, India. Measures included the Gratitude Questionnaire (McCullough et al., 2002), Ryff’s Psychological Well-Being Scale (Ryff, 1995), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965).Means, Standard deviations, Pearson’s product moment correlation of coefficient and regression analyses were conducted. Findings showed significant positive relationship among variables except the relationships between gratitude and autonomy, autonomy and environmental mastery, environmental mastery and positive relation, purpose in life and self-acceptance.The regression analyses reveal that predictors such as gratitude and self-esteem were significantly related to different dimensions of psychological well-being. Gratitude had been found to be the most predictive factor. The findings contribute to the existing knowledge in the field of positive psychology which inculcates the sense of meaningfulness and autonomy among individuals which in turn makes people high on psychological well-being.