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Gratitude and Athletes’ Life Satisfaction: The Moderating Role of Mindfulness

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Abstract

Life satisfaction is a critical index of well-being and is well documented in the literature as a means of protecting athletes from stress. However, minimal research has focused on the factors that contribute to life satisfaction in sports. Accordingly, we adopted the positive psychology perspective and proposed that gratitude would relate to athletes’ life satisfaction. Additionally, we further suggested that mindfulness would strengthen the relationship between gratitude and athletes’ life satisfaction. Athletes completed measurements, and the results, which indicated that athletes with higher levels of gratitude exhibited increased life satisfaction when they had higher levels of mindfulness, supported our expectations. The implications and applications are discussed in terms of mindfulness.

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Acknowledgments

Lung Hung Chen’s research on gratitude was supported by Ministry of Education (2012 project of elastic salary for outstanding scholar, 1010186882) and Ministry of Science and Technology (103-22628-H-179-001-MY2), Taiwan, R.O.C.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Recreation and Leisure Industry Management, National Taiwan Sport University, No. 250, Wen Hua 1st Road, Guishan, Taoyuan City, Taiwan

    Lung Hung Chen

  2. Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

    Chia-Huei Wu

  3. Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

    Jen-Ho Chang

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  1. Lung Hung Chen
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Chen, L.H., Wu, CH. & Chang, JH. Gratitude and Athletes’ Life Satisfaction: The Moderating Role of Mindfulness. J Happiness Stud 18, 1147–1159 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-016-9764-7

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