Page No : 321-333
Jaswant Singh, and Seema Vinayak
Panjab University, Chandigarh
This study examines the mediating role of resilience in the relationship between optimism
and life satisfaction, as well as gender differences in these constructs, among Indian
adolescents. A sample of 264 adolescents, aged 12 to 18 years, was obtained from
randomly selected schools in Chandigarh. The LOT-R (Scheier et al., 1994) assessed
dispositional optimism, the CYRM-R (Jefferies et al., 2019) evaluated resilience, and
the SWLS (Diener et al., 1985) examined life satisfaction. Research on mediation
revealed a significant indirect effect of optimism on life satisfaction via resilience. Personal
resilience had a more pronounced mediating impact than caregiver resilience. Gender
discrepancies were observed in personal resilience and overall resilience, with females
scoring higher than males. No significant gender differences were detected in caregiver
resilience, optimism, or life satisfaction. The study demonstrated that heightened
optimism is associated with greater resilience, which significantly predicts life
satisfaction. These results suggest that school and therapy-based interventions that
intentionally cultivate optimism and strengthen personal resilience, particularly for
socioeconomically disadvantaged adolescents, can significantly enhance life satisfaction
and should be prioritized in policy and practice