“Helping Others Makes Me Feel Better”: Trait Gratitude, Resilience, and Helping Behavior Improve Mental Health during a COVID-19 Lockdown

Abstract

Throughout the entire COVID-19 pandemic, physical lockdown restrictions caused a rise in mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and stress. During the pandemic, Chinese universities implemented “dormitory isolation” for students amid outbreaks, requiring them to stay in their university dormitories for several weeks or even months. This study focused on the mental health of these students and investigated how trait gratitude of them was associated with their mental health. Participants were 1,200 college students from a university in China, who experienced a two-week isolation in university dormitories. We used moderated mediation models to analyze their sex, trait gratitude, resilience, mental health, and helping behavior. Higher trait gratitude was associated with higher resilience, which in turn predicted better mental health. The relationship between trait gratitude and resilience was stronger for females who engaged in helping behaviors, while this relationship was weaker for males who engaged in helping behaviors. The findings suggest that trait gratitude of college students can benefit their mental health through their resilience when they encounter stressful contexts such as dormitory lockdown. Meanwhile, this study indicates the important contextual value of engaging in helping behaviors for females during the lockdown.