The Relationship between Interpersonal Relationship and the Subjective Well-Being of Chinese Primary and Secondary Teachers: A Mediated Moderation Model

Authors: Xuling Zhang, Yong Wang, Xingyun Liu, Shuangxue Xu

Abstract:

Based on positive psychology, this study presented a mediated moderation model in which character strengths moderated the relationship between interpersonal relationship, job satisfaction and subjective well-being, with job satisfaction taking the mediation role among them. A total of 912 teachers participated in four surveys, which include the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, Values in Action Inventory of Strengths, job satisfaction questionnaire, and the interpersonal relationship questionnaire. The results indicated that: (1) Taking interpersonal relationship as a typical work environmental variable, the result shows that it is significantly correlated to subjective well-being. (2) The character strengths of "kindness", “authenticity” moderated the effect of the teachers’ interpersonal relationship on subjective well-being. (3) The teachers’ job satisfaction mediated the above mentioned moderation effects. In general, this study shows that the teachers’ interpersonal relationship affects their subjective well-being, with their job satisfaction as mediation and character strengths of “kindness” and “authenticity” as moderation. The managerial implications were also discussed.

Keywords: Character strength, subjective well-being, job satisfaction, interpersonal relationship.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1124141

References:

[1] E. Diener, "Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index," American psychologist, vol. 55, p. 34, 2000.
[2] L. Wu, X. L. Hu, X. L. Xing, and H. S. Li, "A study on the structure of professional well-being and questionnaire in middle-school teachers," Psychological Research, vol. 1, pp. 47-51, 2008.
[3] X. C. Zhang, J. Hu, J. D. Song, H. C. Zhang, and W. Zhang, "The relationship between psychological capital and subjective well-being in primary school teachers: the mediating role of occupational stress.," Psychological Development and Education, vol. 30, pp. 200-207, 2014.
[4] C. Peterson, A primer in positive psychology: Oxford University Press, 2006.
[5] Y. Zhou and X. P. Liu, "Character strengths of college students: The relationship between character strengths and subjective well-being. ," Psychological Development and Education, vol. 27, pp. 536-542, 2011.
[6] W. J. Duan and Y. Niu, "The relationship of character strengths and happiness on Chongqing primary and secondary students," Journal of Leshan Normal University, vol. 28, pp. 115–119, 2013. (in Chinese)
[7] W. Duan, Y. H. Zhang, T. T. Li, X. Q. Tang, and T. Y. Duan, "Influence of parenting style and character strength on psychology harmony," Psychological Exploration, vol. 32, pp. 183-187, 2012.
[8] CERNET. (2015). Chinese Education Online. Available: http://www.eol.cn/html/jijiao/report/2015/pc/content.html(in Chinese)
[9] C. Peterson and M. E. P. Seligman, "Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification," American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 162, pp. 419-421, 2004.
[10] S. P. Robbins and J. T. A., Organizational Behavior. Bejing: Renmin University Press, 2008.
[11] J. E. V. Horn, D. T. W. Taris, W. B. Schaufeli, and P. J. G. Schreurs, "The structure of occupational well-being: A study among Dutch teachers," Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, vol. 77, pp. 365–375, 2004.
[12] C. Rongbao, "Predictive role of teaching efficacy, job satisfaction on happiness Among Primary and Secondary Teachers," Shanxi Normal University, 2011. (in Chinese)
[13] Z. T. Dai, "Study of nine-year compulsory education teachers’ job satisfaction and subjective well-being," Henan University, 2013. (in Chinese)
[14] P. Hills and M. Argyle, "The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire: a compact scale for the measurement of psychological well-being," Personality & Individual Differences, vol. 33, pp. 1073-1082, 2002.
[15] Y. A. Li and Y. L. Chen, "Dimensional structure of Oxford happiness questionnaire (revision) and verification of its reliability and validity," Health Medicine Research and Practice, vol. 10, pp. 31–37, 2013.
[16] J. Ren, Positive Psychology vol. 8. Shanghai: Shanghai Education Press, 2006. (in Chinese)
[17] J. P. Wanous, A. E. Reichers, and M. J. Hudy, "Overall job satisfaction: how good are single-item measures?," Journal of applied Psychology, vol. 82, p. 247, 1997.
[18] S. W. Raudenbush and A. S. Bryk, Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods vol. 1: Sage, 2002.
[19] W. Mengcheng, Latent variable modeling and Mplus application: basic articles: Chongqing university press 2014. (in Chinese)
[20] (2013). Global well-being index report. Available: http://world.huanqiu.com/exclusive/2013-09/4343957.html.
[21] Z. L. Wen, L. Zhang, and H. K. T., "Mediated moderator and moderated mediator," Acta Psychologica Sinica, vol. 38, pp. 448-452, 2006.
[22] A. P. Brief and H. M. Weiss, "Organizational behavior: Affect in the workplace," Annual review of psychology, vol. 53, pp. 279-307, 2002.
[23] X. Jihua and X. Xiufeng, ""The way to deal with the questionnaire" the validity and reliability study " Chinese Mental Health Journal, vol. 10, pp. 164-168, 1996.