The Mediating Role of Positive and Negative Affect in the Relationship between Meaning in Life and Mental Health

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of positive and negative affect in the relationship between meaning in life and mental health. The sample consisted of 337 students (153 males and 184 females) from University of Tehran at three levels: BA, MA and PHD. Participants are chosen by available sampling. The students answered the Crumbaugh Maholick (1964) Meaning of Life Questionnaire, Veit and Ware (1983) Mental Health Inventory and Watson et al (1988) Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. For analyzing data, we used some indexes such as Frequency, Percent, Standard deviation, Pearson correlation test and for proving the mediating role, we used Pathway analysis. The results showed a significant positive and negative relationship between meaning in life and psychological well-being as well as psychological distress. The Pathway analysis showed that positive and negative affect has mediating role in the relationship between meaning in life and mental health. According to the result, it can be concluded that, attention to meaning in life and improve it in students life lead to increasing positive affect and as a result can influence mental health and decrease expression of negative affect and psychological distress level.