Previous research has found that gratitude, which is a central concept or practice in many religions and spiritual traditions, benefits an individual's well-being and may reduce symptoms of depression (Emmons & Stern in Journal of Clinical Psychology 69: 846–855, 2013). The current research utilized two different samples from the United States (i.e., undergraduate students at a large, public university, and a national sample of individuals formerly raised by custodial grandparents and/or through foster care obtained through Amazon Mechanical Turk) to examine the relation between religiosity and well-being. Measures used included life satisfaction (Satisfaction with Life Scale), symptoms of depression (Center for Epidemiological Studies of Depression Scale-Revised), and gratitude (the Gratitude Questionnaire-6 Item Form, GQ-6; and the Transpersonal Gratitude Scale). The relation between religiosity (the Stearns-McKinney Assessment of Religious Traits) and psychological well-being (i.e., life satisfaction and depression) was mediated by gratitude among adults formerly raised by custodial grandparents and undergraduate college students at a large Southeastern university. These results indicate that gratitude may be an important factor in understanding the relation between religiosity and depressive symptoms and life satisfaction.

先前的研究发现，感恩是许多宗教和精神传统中的核心概念或实践，它有益于个人的幸福并可能减轻抑郁症状（Emmons & Stern in Journal of Clinical Psychology 69: 846–855, 2013） . 当前的研究使用了来自美国的两个不同样本（即，一所大型公立大学的本科生，以及以前由监护祖父母抚养和/或通过 Amazon Mechanical Turk 获得的寄养所抚养的全国样本）来检查这种关系在宗教信仰和幸福之间。使用的衡量标准包括生活满意度（生活满意度量表）、抑郁症状（抑郁症流行病学研究中心修订版）和感恩（感恩问卷-6 项目表，GQ-6；和超个人感恩量表）。宗教信仰（Stearns-McKinney 宗教特征评估）和心理健康（即生活满意度和抑郁）之间的关系是由以前由监护祖父母抚养的成年人和东南大学的本科大学生的感恩所介导的。这些结果表明，感恩可能是理解宗教信仰与抑郁症状与生活满意度之间关系的重要因素。