Poster Presentation 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

The Mediating Effect Of Positive Psychological Capital Between Academic Satisfaction And Environmental Factors Across Gender (#649)

Jiwon Kim 1 , Hang-Shim Lee 1
  1. KonKuk Univeristy, Konkuk University, SEOUL, South Korea

An attention toward positive adjustment and satisfaction in the vocational psychology literature has increased (Brown & Lent, 2016; Magyr-Moe, Owens, & Conoley, 2015). With this influence of positive psychology on vocational l research, many positive psychological constructs have been examined in the vocational literature. Among various positive psychological constructs, empirical studies related to positive psychological capital (Luthans, Avolio, Avey, &Norman, 2007) have been examined in organizational settings. However, there was much less attention to examine the role of positive psychological capital in academic domain. Thus, this empirical study aimed to explore the mediating role of positive psychological capital between academic satisfaction and environmental factors including career barriers and environmental supports with a sample of 575 Korean college students. We tested the structural relations among our variables using structural equation modeling and further examined the gender differences using a multi-group analysis. Our findings supported a model where: (a) the positive psychological capital partially mediated between career barriers and academic satisfaction, (b) the positive psychological capital mediated between environmental supports and academic satisfaction, (c) environmental supports did not directly predict academic satisfaction, (d) the relations in the model did not differ by gender. The implications for practice and research are discussed.