| The aging problem in China has gradually deepened,the happiness of the elderly also became an important issue to be reckoned with.There exist a series of problems that led to a decline in well-being during the old age.According to previous studies,gratitude and appropriate social comparison is beneficial to increase happiness.As a kind of emotional traits,gratitude means that individual perception the grace of others or society and nature in a immediacy or a persistence way,and people also express and reward this grace in that way.Social comparison is a way to define your own social characteristics by compared with others.There is much less happiness research for the elderly compared with other population in our country.The study will adopt a synthetic paradigm including gratitude intervention and social comparison pattern to discuss the influence of these two concepts.The first study using 2(intervention mode: gratitude events record,daily events record)x 2(social comparison orientation:upward and downward)x 2(the time of measurement: pre-test,post-test)mixed experimental design,to examined whether gratitude intervention and social comparison orientation is effect the elderly subjective well-being.The second study using 2(trait gratitude levels: high and low)x 2(social comparison orientation: upward and downward)x 3(the time of measurement: pre-test,post-test,test after three months)mixed experimental design,to explored the difference between the elderly subjects that in the different groups of trait gratitude and comparison orientation under the concept of the gratitude intervention,and to explore the dissimilarity of the subject well-being between the different patterns.The results of the study are as follows:1.Gratitude intervention and social comparison orientation have interactive influence on the levels of subjective well-being for the elderly subjects: F(1,118)= 5.28,p<0.05).Within the daily evens record group,the level of subjective well-being of elderly who keep downward social comparison is higher than the elderly that keep upward social comparison(p<0.001);In the group of upward social comparison records,elderly who record gratitude dairy has a higher subjective well-being level than the daily evens record group(p<0.001).2.In the measurement of subjective well-being scores on post-test,trait gratitude and social comparison direction has no significant interactions: F(1,63)= 2.16,p>0.05,the level of trait gratitude have significant main effect: F(1,63)= 5.34,p<0.05,subjects of high trait gratitude have a significantly higher level of SWB than participants with a low trait gratitude.3.Under the gratitude intervention situation,downward social comparison can significantly improve SWB of the elderly,in the post-test scores of subjective well-being,the main effect of social comparison is significant,F(1,63)= 8.26,p<0.01,participants who keep the downward social comparison have a significantly higher SWB level than the participants in the upward social comparison group.4.Gratitude intervention is more effective to the elderly that have a low level of trait gratitude than those in a higher level of the trait gratitude(p<0.01).5.Three months later,the elderly who accept the gratitude intervention still have a significantly higher levels of SWB than the level of pre-test(p<0.001).Through this study,gratitude intervention can effectively improve the level of subjective well-being of the elderly,and it is more effective for the elderly with the low trait gratitude level.The influence of gratitude intervention on subjective well-being have the continuing effect even after three months.Appropriate downward social comparison could improve the subjective well-being in the elderly,which is support the select-priming model theory of the social comparison.This can be applied in the community or the relevant endowment institutions,in order to improve the old people's happiness and help them to mitigating the effects of negative emotions,to reach the high-quality of self integration eventually. |
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