How do grit and gratitude relate to flourishing? The mediating role of emotion regulation

Abstract

Research suggests that grit and gratitude can protect individuals against the hazards of maladaptive outcomes such as suicidal ideation. However, there are scarce investigations on how such positive traits predict wellbeing and the mechanisms underpinning the link of such dispositions to desirable psychological functioning especially in non-Western contexts. Moreover, previous studies relied heavily on the two-factor model of grit in examining the link of grit to psychological outcomes. This research addresses these gaps through assessing the associations of gratitude and triarchic model of grit dimensions (i.e., Emphasis Type="Italic"perseverance of effort, consistency of interests, /Emphasis and Emphasis Type="Italic"adaptability to situations/Emphasis) with flourishing among 236 high school students in the Philippines. In addition, this study explored the mediating effects of emotion regulation strategies-cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression-on the hypothesized link of gratitude and grit on psychological flourishing. Results showed that all dimensions of grit and gratitude were associated with higher levels of flourishing. Gratitude and grit dimensions were also positively correlated with both cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Furthermore, bias-corrected bootstrapping analyses at 95% confidence interval based on 5000 bootstrapped resamples demonstrated that cognitive reappraisal mediated the link of gratitude, Emphasis Type="Italic"perseverance of effort, /Emphasis and Emphasis Type="Italic"adaptability to situations/Emphasis on flourishing. Findings suggest that cognitive reappraisal serves as a psychological mechanism underscoring the relationship of gratitude and grit to wellbeing. Implications of the results to extant grit theorizing and practical initiatives on developing positive characters are elucidated.