How is negative affect associated with life satisfaction? The moderating role of online self-disclosure in China's context

Abstract

Although affect is widely accepted to be a critical factor in improving one's life satisfaction, little is known about how this association works. This study proposes a moderating role of online self-disclosure between affect and life satisfaction. We conducted a survey with 621 valid respondents at 10 Chinese universities and performed correlation and regression analyses to explore the hypotheses. The findings confirm that positive affect is positively associated with life satisfaction, while negative affect is negatively associated with life satisfaction. Meanwhile, negative affect is not a strong predictor of life satisfaction in China's context compared to that of more individualistic nations. For individuals with higher online self-disclosure, the moderating effect is much stronger and weakens the association between negative affect and life satisfaction. The conclusions in this study contribute to the understanding of the moderating mechanism between affect and life satisfaction that is caused by online self-disclosure. The results further imply that frequent online self-disclosure may have a blocking effect on the connection between negative affect and life satisfaction.