Predicting Student's Psychological Well-Being Based on Forgiveness and Meaning in Life: The Mediating Role of Positive and Negative Affects

The present study aimed to predict students’ psychological well-being based on forgiveness and meaning in life by considering the mediating role of positive and negative affects. It was conducted with a correlational method. Therefore, 377 students from the University of Kashan, Iran, were selected through multi-stage sampling and filled out Steger Meaning in life questionnaire, Ehteshamzadeh et al. Interpersonal forgiveness scale, Positive & Negative affect Schedule (PANAS) and Ryff psychological well-being Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling in Amos (version 22). The results showed that forgiveness and meaning in life could significantly predict students’ psychological well-being; moreover, positive and negative affect have a mediating role in the relationship between forgiveness, and meaning in life with psychological well-being. Considering the modeling indices, it could be argued that the proposed model had a good fitness, and it had good agreement with the empirical data. In this model, all regression weights were statistically significant, and predictor variables could explain .77 of the variance of psychological well-being. The implication is that positive and negative affects could be increased, leading to students’ psychological well-being, by enhancing students’ forgiveness and meaning in life.