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. 2025 May 19;5(1):74.
doi: 10.1007/s44192-025-00203-8.

Spiritual well-being mediates between psychological capital and emotional experiences: evidence from college students at a private residential university in India

Jerin V Philipose  1 , Rajneesh Choubisa  2 , Akash Dubey  2
Affiliations

Spiritual well-being mediates between psychological capital and emotional experiences: evidence from college students at a private residential university in India

Jerin V Philipose et al. Discov Ment Health. .

Abstract

College students worldwide are encountering significant mental health challenges and positive psychological approaches are effective in addressing these issues. Psychological capital as a construct having origin from organizational psychology plays an important role in young people's education and mental health. The dimensions of psychological capital and spiritual well-being play an important role in manifesting emotional experiences, both positive and negative, among young individuals. In the contemporary scenario, where social and economic factors act as deciding factors in deciphering and influencing emotions, there is a dire need to focus on the positive developmental aspects of human behavior. We, thus, explore the interconnection between psychological capital and spiritual well-being and quantitatively investigate how both of them influence the emotional experiences of college students (N = 214). Results from the regression analysis suggest that psychological capital predicts positive emotions, whereas spiritual well-being mediates this relationship. One of the practical implications of our results suggest that these three variables have good interventional potential for well-being promotion studies.

Keywords: Negative emotions; Positive emotions; Psychological capital; Spiritual well-being; Students; Young adults.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study was approved by the Institutional Human Ethics Committee BITS-Pilani, Pilani Campus with approval number IHEC/BITS/A/23/2022. All the respondents were oriented, and informed consent was obtained before the start of the survey. Clinical trial number: Not Applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Research model depicting the associative relationship of PsyCap on emotional experiences and the mediating role of SIWB
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Standardized results of mediation model when SIWB mediates between PsyCap and PE
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Mediation estimate plot when SIWB mediates between PsyCap and PE
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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