International Journal of Psychological Studies; Vol. 10, No. 3; 2018 ISSN 1918-7211 E-ISSN 1918-722X Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 21 Gratitude and Life Satisfaction: Mediating Role of Perceived Stress Murat Yildirim 1 & Zainab Shalal Alanazi 1,2 1 Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour, George Davies Centre, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom 2 Department of Psychology, Shaqra University, Muzahimiyah, Saudi Arabia. Correspondence: Murat Yildirim, Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour, University of Leicester. George Davies Centre, University Road, Leicester, LE1 9HN, United Kingdom. E-mail: my109@le.ac.uk Received: June 23, 2018 Accepted: July 9, 2018 Online Published: July 16, 2018 doi:10.5539/ijps.v10n3p21 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/ijps.v10n3p21 Abstract The relationships between gratitude, satisfaction with life, and stress have been widely examined in different cultures. However, empirical research on these variables is scant in Saudi Arabia. The aim of this study was to investigate the mediation effect of stress in the relationship between gratitude and life satisfaction in an understudied population of Arabic student sample. Participants were 141 Arabic-speaking undergraduate students (18 males and 123 females; mean age = 23.8 years, SD = 4.23) and completed self-report measures of gratitude, satisfaction with life, and stress. As expected, regression analysis showed that gratitude positively predicted satisfaction with life, while stress negatively predicted satisfaction with life. Mediation analysis showed that stress fully mediate the relationship between gratitude and life satisfaction. Higher levels of gratitude positively predicted higher levels of satisfaction with life though the decreased stress. The emerging results have important implications to research and practice regarding understanding the mechanism underlying gratitude, satisfaction with life, and stress in the context of a non-western country. Keywords: gratitude, satisfaction with life, perceived stress, mediation, Saudi Arabia 1. Introduction The concept of subjective well-being (SWB) is conceptualized as including three important elements: (a) one’s cognitive assessment of his or her life in general and specific aspects of life, (b) the presence of positive affect, and (c) the absence of negative affect. The former refers to cognitive component of SWB, while the latter two refer to affective components of SWB (Diener, 1984, 2000; Diener & Suh, 1997). Individuals high in SWB is described as experiencing low negative affect, high positive affect, and high satisfaction with life (Diener & Lucas, 1999). Research showed that three elements of SWB (positive affect, negative affect and satisfaction with life) are related with one another yet distinct from each other (Diener et al., 1999; Lucas, Diener & Suh, 1996). As seen, satisfaction with life is one of the prominent components of SWB. Satisfaction with life is relatively a more stable characteristic than affective components and it has extensive benefits to the psychological health and quality of life of individuals. Satisfaction with life allows individuals to perform long-term life evaluations based on their own sets of criteria (Eid & Diener, 2004; Pavot & Diener, 1993). Numerous studies have been conducted to determine the correlates and predictors of satisfaction with life across cultures. Studies have shown that there is a wide range of factors that influence satisfaction with life or SWB. Some of these factors are personality, social support, health, and individualism vs collectivism (Diener & Diener, 1995; Diener & Lucas, 1999; Diener, Oishi & Lucas, 2003). Studies also suggest that higher satisfaction with life is related with higher resilience, self-esteem (Lee, Kim & Wachholtz, 2016; Martínez-Martí & Ruch, 2017), presence of partnership, and income while lower satisfaction with life is related with higher stress (Lee, Kim & Wachholtz, 2016), anxiety, depression, unemployment (Beutel et al., 2010), fear of happiness (Yildirim & Aziz, 2017), and externality of happiness (Yildirim, Barmanpek, & Farag, 2018a). Satisfaction with life is associated with gratitude and social support (Kong, Ding & Zhao, 2015; Wood, Joseph & Maltby, 2008a), optimism (Extremera, Durán & Rey, 2009), social relationships (Darling et al., 2007), and health seeking and health-promoting behaviours (Grant, Wardle & Steptoe, 2009). Furthermore, studies revealed that perceived stress and availability of coping recourses significantly predict life satisfaction (Hamarat et al., 2001; Simons et