Chinese Students’ Satisfaction with Life Relative to Psychological Capital and Mediated by Purpose in Life

Altogether 700 college students aged 18 to 24 years ( M = 20.81, SD = 1.29) originating from six universities in China participated in this study. The current aim was to find out whether a student’s sense of purpose in life mediated the relationship between his/her psychological capital (PsyCap) comprising hope, generalized self-efficacy, resilience, optimism (HERO; Luthans and Youssef-Morgan. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior , 4 , 339–366, 2017 ) and satisfaction with life. Furthermore, it was asked which factor contributes more to students’ satisfaction with life, PsyCap or purpose in life? Thus, apprentices completed the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale (Snyder et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 60 (4), 570–585, 1991 ), General Self-Efficacy Scale (Schwarzer and Jerusalem. Causal and Control Beliefs , 1 , 35–37, 1995 ), Resilience Scale (Wagnild and Young. Journal of Nursing Measurement , 1 (2), 165–17847, 1993 ), Life Orientation Test-Revised (Scheier et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 67 (6), 1063–1078, 1994 ) along with the completion of the Purpose in Life Test (Crumbaugh and Maholick. Journal of Clinical Psychology , 20 (2), 200–207, 1964 ) and Satisfaction with life scale (Diener et al. Journal of Personality Assessment , 49 (1), 71–75, 1985 ). The results disclosed grade differences in PsyCap elements. Moreover, positive and significant correlations between any of two variables were found, thus allowing for further analysis. Structural equation modeling revealed that students’ satisfaction with life was directly predicted by PsyCap per se as well as indirectly projected by means of the construct purpose in life. Based on the present assessment, PsyCap contributed more to students’ satisfaction with life than their experienced purpose in life.