Open Access

ARTICLE

Longitudinal Relationship between Gratitude and Benign/Malicious Envy: Evidence from a Cross-Lagged Analysis

Liying Zhang, Lijun Yang^*

School of Educational Sciences, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081, China

* Corresponding Author: Lijun Yang. Email:

International Journal of Mental Health Promotion 2022, 24(2), 277-286. https://doi.org/10.32604/ijmhp.2022.018640

Received 07 August 2021; Accepted 27 October 2021; Issue published 18 January 2022

Abstract

Though prior research has identified that gratitude is associated with benign/malicious envy (BeMaS). The purpose of this study was to explore the causal relationship between gratitude and BeMaS among Chinese adolescents. The two-wave study, in which 906 adolescents participated, includes measurements of gratitude and BeMaS. We employed the structural equation models to test the cross-lagged effect between trait gratitude and BeMaS. The results showed that gratitude could positively predict benign envy and could negatively predict malicious envy. Besides, there was no evidence for the reverse or reciprocal relationships between gratitude and BeMaS. The findings provide further evidence about the causal relationship between gratitude and BeMaS among adolescents. Moreover, these results have implications for gratitude interventions that promote the constructive meaning of envy and reduce the negative influence of envy.

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Keywords

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