Meaning in Life and Materialism as Mediators of the Relationship Between Dispositional Awe and Tourist Eudaimonic Well-Being

Abstract

Dispositional awe has previously been positively linked to subjective well-being, directly and indirectly, through meaning in life and materialism. There hasn’t been much research that considered these relationships in the context of tourist eudaimonic well-being. Hence, the main goal of the present study is to check whether dispositional awe relates to tourist eudaimonic well-being and whether meaning in life and materialism can serve as underlying mechanisms behind this relationship. Data was collected from a sample of 322 adults through self-report online questionnaires. Model 4 in PROCESS (Hayes, 2018) was used to investigate the parallel mediation effects and the direct effect hypothesized in this study. The two parallel mediators were meaning in life and materialism. The dispositional awe was modelled as a predictor, and tourist eudaimonic well-being as an outcome variable. Mediation analysis confirmed a significant, positive direct path from dispositional awe to tourist eudaimonic well-being. Bootstrap analysis indicated that meaning in life, not materialism, mediated this relationship. Based on this research, it can be concluded that those tourists who are more prone to experience awe might give their lives more meaning, promoting eudaimonic well-being during the touristic trips.