Interplay between Teachers’ Affective Well-Being and Thriving at Work: A Cross-Lagged Study

Abstract

Affective well-being, as an important component of well-being, is related to an individual’s mental health and quality of life. Previous studies have found that some psychological variables of employees at work can affect their well-being, but most studies use cross-sectional design, and the exploration of the potential psychological mechanism of the relationship between the two is unclear. This study adopted a longitudinal design to explore the dynamic bidirectional relationship between the thriving at work and affective well-being among the primary and secondary school teachers, and further investigated the mediating mechanism of work-family enrichment between them. Thriving at Work Questionnaire, Work-Family Enrichment Questionnaire, and Affective Well-being Questionnaire are used to conduct a three-wave longitudinal study design which with a sample of 778 teachers at an interval of one year. The results of the cross-lagged analysis showed that: (1) There was an interactive and mutually predictive association between teachers’ affective well-being and thriving at work. (2) The relationship between the positive and negative affective dimensions of teachers’ affective well-being and thriving at work was different; the positive affective dimension rather than the negative affective dimension at the former time point significantly predicted thriving at work at the latter time point; and the thriving at work at the former time point significantly predicted the negative affective dimension rather than the positive affective dimension at the latter time point. (3) Teachers’ work-family enrichment mediated the effect of their thriving at work on their affective well-being, but did not mediate the effect of their affective well-being on their thriving at work. (4) For the relationship between positive affective dimension or negative affective dimension and work-family enrichment and thriving at work, only work-family enrichment was found to play a mediating role in the process of thriving at work affecting positive affective. The study revealed the relationship and mechanism between teachers’ thriving at work, work-family enrichment, and affective well-being, and provided empirical research basis for educational administration and school organizations to explore effective measures to improve the working experience and well-being of teachers.