Correlatives of Happiness in University Students: Optimism, Meaning of Life and Coping Strategies

Introduction: Happiness is one of the most essential innate desires and psychological needs that due to their main impacts on optimization and promotion of health in every society, has continuously engaged human beings. The present study was conducted to determine the relationship between optimism, the meaning of life and coping strategies with the happiness of university students.  Methods: This research was a descriptive study and conducted in the framework of a correlational predictive design. The sample of research included one-hundred-fifty BA students of Islamic Azad university, Lahijan branch consisted of ninety-six female and fifty-four male studying during the 2014-2015 educational year. Who studied in the fields of humanities, basic sciences, agriculture, technological and engineering and were randomly selected using a non-probabilistic sampling method. Then Oxford's happiness scale, the scale of Lifetrend, the scale of life meaning and questionnaire of contrastive styles were applied. The results were analyzed using descriptive indices of mean, standard deviation, statistical methods of Pearson correlation coefficient, and stepwise regression. Results: The findings P<0.01 showed that the relationship between optimism, meaningfulness, and problem-focused coping strategies with happiness is positive and significant. But the relationship of the attempt to find meaning with happiness P>0.05 was not significant. The relationship of the emotion-focused coping strategy with happiness P<0.05 was negative and significant. The findings also showed that the variables of optimism and the problem-focused coping strategy explained forty-two percent of happiness. Conclusions: according to the findings of this research it can be concluded that optimistic, meaningfulness and problem-focused coping strategy lead to higher-level happiness in BA students.