Page No 29-39
Prashant Singh, Sushil Kumar Sah, Archita Gupta, Tarun Mishra,
Trayambak Tiwari
Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi
Priyanka Tiwari
University of Delhi, New Delhi
Indian perspective on personality is predominantly derived from the Samkhya philosophy.
It is a dualistic school of Indian philosophy that views Purusha and Prakriti as the two
independent elements that form reality. Prakriti is formed by three components of ‘Gunas’
namely Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas, that are interdependent (Chakraborty, 1987). In
psychological research understanding the factors influencing subjective well-being of
an individual is a central question. In previous researches different personality traits
have been examined as a predictor of life satisfaction but Indic personality structure
has rarely been used. Subjective well-being has been conceptualized as consisting of
affective and cognitive components (Diener, 1984). The cognitive component has also
been conceptualized as life satisfaction (Andrews & Withey, 1976). The term “life
satisfaction” relates to how much a person likes their life (Diener et al.,1998). Life
satisfaction is a cognitive and global assessment of one’s overall quality of life. Although
personality traits predict life satisfaction the mechanism through it occurs could include
social support systems. Present study explored the mediating role of perceived social
support in the relationship between tri-guna personality and life satisfaction. Perceived
social support can be defined as individual’s perception of availability and adequacy of
emotional and instrumental support from family, friends, and significant others. (Zimet
et al., 1988). Results revealed that sattva is positively associated with life satisfaction
whereas, rajas, and tamas were found to be negatively associated with life satisfaction.
Mediation analysis revealed that perceived social support partially mediates the
relationship between tri-guna personality and life satisfaction