The mediating role of negative affect in the relationship between family functioning and subjective happiness in Spanish college students

Previous research shows that family functioning and an individ-ual's temperamental characteristics carry significant weight in explaining subjective happiness. However, the link between these factors is scarcely considered in emerging adulthood. For more understanding, the main aim of our study was to explore the mediating role of negative affect on the re-lationship between family functioning and subjective happiness among a sample of 347 college students in Spain. Results showed moderate scores in family cohesion and flexibility were positively associated to a young per-son & PRIME;s subjective happiness, while some extreme scores in those scales showed the opposite pattern. In contrast, negative affect was negatively as-sociated to subjective happiness in college students. SEM analyses revealed that negative affect fully mediates the relationship between both balanced and unbalanced family functioning and subjective happiness. As regards dysfunctional family patterns, we found that negative affect fully mediated the relationship between disengaged, enmeshed and chaotic unbalanced scales, and subjective happiness. However, this mediational pattern failed to replicate in the unbalanced rigid scale. The social and clinical implica-tions of these results on the promotion of subjective happiness in early adulthood was discussed, taking into account Spanish cultural beliefs on family functioning and well-being.