Abstract
Based on the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, this study explored the mediating effect of spiritual intelligence between awe and life satisfaction among Chinese primary school teachers and whether this effect was moderated by ethnicity. Participants comprised 569 teachers from 24 primary schools in southwestern China, where many of the ethnic minority groups of China reside. Awe and spiritual intelligence were found to positively predict life satisfaction among primary school teachers, while awe also indirectly influenced life satisfaction through the partial mediation of spiritual intelligence. Ethnicity was also found to moderate the relation between awe and life satisfaction, i.e., when compared with the Han teachers, there is a more significant and positive relation between awe and life satisfaction in ethnic minority teachers. These findings not only indicate the critical role of awe in promoting life satisfaction of primary school teachers but also especially show that awe embodied in the traditional cultural activities makes it easier to breed life satisfaction in ethnic minority teachers.
Highlights
Based on the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, this study explored the mediating effect of spiritual intelligence between awe and life satisfaction among Chinese primary school teachers and whether this effect was moderated by ethnicity
The results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the fit indexes of three-factor model were χ2/df = 4.07, NFI = 0.91, TLI = 0.90, CFI = 0.92, RMSEA = 0.07
The results show that awe and life satisfaction were significantly positively correlated (r = 0.23, p < 0.01), awe and spiritual intelligence were significantly positively correlated (r = 0.53, p < 0.01), and awe was positively correlated with its four dimensions, namely, consciousness, grace, meaning, and transcendence (r = 0.38–0.49, all p < 0.01), but the correlation coefficient between awe and presence dimensions was not significant (r = 0.08, p > 0.05)
Summary
The “Guidelines for Mental Health Education in Primary and Secondary Schools” promulgated by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China in 2012 clearly states that “Teachers’ mental health education should be regarded as an important aspect of teachers’ education and career development.” In target tasks of Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening the Construction and Reform of the Faculty in the New Era (2018), the State Council of China proposed that “respecting teachers and attaching great importance to education has become a common trend, so that the majority of teachers have a sense of happiness in their posts, a sense of accomplishment in their careers, and a sense of honor in society.” How to enhance the physical and mental health and happiness of teachers has become an important issue in the field of education research. How to enhance the physical and mental health and happiness of teachers has become an important issue in the field of education research. We thought that the physical and mental health and happiness of teachers could be facilitated by cultivating awe in the process of teacher education. Some studies indicated that awe has positive facilitation on the physical and mental health and subjective wellbeing of people (Rudd et al, 2012; Krause and Hayward, 2015; Stellar et al, 2015; Dong and Ni, 2019; Zhao et al, 2019). Based on the perspective of positive psychology, the main purpose of this study is to explore the possible psychological mechanism of awe affecting life satisfaction among primary school teachers
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