Communion and well-being: A moderated mediation via gender restricted emotionality

Abstract

Communion is a core psychological motive that contributes to well-being. Narrative expressions of communion are considered centrally important for personality but also are stereotypically associated with gender. Eight autobiographical memory narratives per participant (N = 96) were content-coded for communion. A moderated mediation model found that narrated communion predicted psychological well-being, but this relation was moderated by gender and mediated by restricted emotion. Communion predicted well-being for women but not for men. Restricted emotional expression correlated to lower well-being for all participants but was only related to communion for women but not men. Findings are interpreted in terms of how the ‘good life’ emerges from the dialogue between personal narrative and the master narratives against which they are positioned for the individual.