Do Trait hope and Trait Gratitude Support the Mental Health of Mothers in low-income Families in Singapore?

Despite abundant evidence that trait hope and trait gratitude predict higher well-being, there remained little research on whether these dispositions predict mental health among people living with financial challenges in real-life. Focusing on mothers (N = 462) in low-income families in Singapore, this study examined three questions. First, what hope-gratitude clusters would characterize the mother participants? Second, would the mothers’ trait hope and gratitude predict their depression and anxiety? Third, how might these dispositions moderate the relationships between economic hardship and depression and anxiety? Cluster analysis identified four naturally occurring clusters comprising high and low levels of both dispositions. Both dispositions negatively predicted depression and anxiety as expected. It was only among participants in clusters characterized by higher levels of trait hope - regardless of the level of trait gratitude - that the negative relationship between economic hardship and depression was non-significant. The relationships between economic hardships and both depression and anxiety were negative and significant in clusters with lower levels of trait hope regardless of trait gratitude. The results suggest that while trait hope and gratitude correlated negatively with depression and anxiety, trait gratitude does not appear to mitigate the negative relationships between economic hardship and both mental health outcomes and trait hope appears to reduce only the relationship between economic hardship and depression.