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is central to well-being. Gra�tude has also been God at the beginning of a path model given the
related to experiencing God and producing theore�cal support for rela�onship with God
hope that is related to well-being (Kraus et al., ini�a�ng character change. The character virtu-
2015); and Kraus et al. (2015) found religious es follow in the model due to prior evidence
efficacy, the sense that God impacts one’s life, sugges�ng their media�ng roles between a re-
increases gra�tude. How gra�tude relates to, la�onship with God and well-being. The follo-
or interacts with humility is less well known. wing research ques�ons were asked. RQ1: Do
character virtues, humility, gra�tude, and com-
The role of compassion is less clear. Only one passion mediate between a rela�onship with
study has inves�gated compassion in the con- God and self-reported well-being in Chris�ans?
text of rela�ng to God and well-being, and RQ2: If character virtues mediate between a re-
found compassionate a�tude and behaviors la�onship with God and self-reported well-
fully mediate the effect of intrinsic religiosity on being in Chris�ans, what are the effects among
well-being (Steffen & Masters, 2005). However, the variables? RQ3: Is there support for humili-
Steffens and Masters (2005) found evidence of ty as a master virtue that facilitates gra�tude
compassion media�ng between intrinsic religi- and compassion?
osity and psycho-social health. Humility, gra�-
tude and compassion are conceptually linked to Method
a rela�onship with God and well-being, and This study u�lized a cross-sec�onal, correla�o-
may indeed mediate between these variables. nal design to inves�gate the hypothesized mo-
dels using path analysis (Spector, 2019; Strei-
Purpose of the study ner, 2005). The exogenous variable was a rela�-
We return to Krause and Hayward’s (2015) call onship with God. Character virtues humility,
for designs to assess mul�ple virtues, their in- gra�tude and compassion, and well-being were
terac�ons, and test theore�cal models to en- endogenous variables. Par�cular a�en�on was
hance our understanding of how a rela�onship paid to the media�ng role of the character vir-
with God may influence the lives of Chris�ans. tues. The hypothesized direc�ons of the path
Collec�ve media�on and the priority of charac- coefficients for each model are indicated in Fi-
ter virtues lack inves�ga�on regarding a rela�- gure 1., along with the final path coefficients.
onship with God. We placed rela�onship with Figure 1. Hypothesized Path Model and path
coefficients
