Unveiling the Psychological Pathway From Gratitude to Job Satisfaction in Working Students

Abstract

The phenomenon of students studying while working is increasingly common, influenced by economic factors, the desire to gain experience, and the use of free time. This study aims to examine the relationship between gratitude and job satisfaction, with spiritual intelligence as a mediating variable among part-time working students. A quantitative correlational approach with a cross-sectional design was employed, involving 368 part-time working students selected through cluster sampling across five faculties. Statistical mediation analysis was performed using PROCESS Macro Model 4, with a bootstrapping procedure of 5.000 resamples. The results of the bootstrap-based mediation analysis indicated that gratitude had a significant total effect on job satisfaction (c = 0.622, SE = 0.030, p < .001, 95% CI [0.562, 0.683]). After including spiritual intelligence as a mediator, gratitude remained a significant predictor of job satisfaction (c' = 0.407, SE = 0.053, p < .001, 95% CI [0.302, 0.511]), indicating partial mediation. Furthermore, gratitude showed a significant indirect effect on job satisfaction through spiritual intelligence (ab = 0.215, BootSE = 0.061, 95% CI [0.088, 0.325]). The proportion mediated analysis indicated that spiritual intelligence accounted for 34.5% of the total effect, suggesting that it partially mediates the relationship between gratitude and job satisfaction. However, due to the cross-sectional nature of the data, these findings cannot be interpreted as a causal relationship but rather reflect statistical associations among the variables within the context of the study.