Flourishing among Postgraduate Students: The Role of Resilience, Meaningfulness and Grit

The abundance of investigations conducted on psychological distresses and abnormal behaviors suggests that the deficit-based approach has been generally regarded as more important than the strength-based approach among psychology researchers. However in recent times, with positive psychology gaining popularity, there has been a shift in approach towards studying positive outcomes along with negative ones. Positive psychology has been defined as the scientific study of optimal human functioning which aims to discover and promote factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000, p.5). This study based on the strength based approach, explores the role of meaningfulness, resilience and grit on flourishing among postgraduate students in India. Participants included 101 postgraduate students (female=51; male=50) who were enrolled in master's and doctoral programs in India. Snow ball sampling method was used for data collection. Participants reported having experienced both positive and negative events in the past year and also their level of adjustment to those events. The results show that females display higher levels of meaningfulness, flourishing and grit as compared to males whereas, males score slightly higher on resilience as compared to their female counterparts. Furthermore, meaningfulness, resilience and grit emerged as strong predictors of flourishing among males as compared to females. The findings were discussed in the light of available literature and directions for future research have been outlined