"Meaning Makes the Difference": Gratitude, Forgiveness, and Spirituality Influence Mental Health through Meaning in Life in Postgraduate Students

Background: Mental health concerns are increasingly prevalent among post-graduate students, who face academic, social, and career-related pressures. Despite the growing literature on student mental health, relatively little is known about the psychological resources that support well-being in post-graduate learners. Meaning in life has emerged as a key psychological resource that enables individuals to interpret chal-lenges, maintain coherence, and sustain well-being in challenging times; recent re-search also suggests the role of self-transcendent traits such as gratitude, forgiveness, and spirituality in nurturing meaning in life. However, empirical evidence examining these interrelationships remains limited. Method: A total of 1,527 postgraduate Paki-stani students (M = 795; mean age = 24.89 years) were recruited from ten public uni-versities in Punjab, Pakistan, using multistage random sampling. Five standardized in-struments were employed: the Gratitude Questionnaire, Heartland Forgiveness Scale, Spirituality Scale, Meaning in Life Questionnaire, and Mental Health Inventory (as-sessing psychological well-being and psychological distress). Results: Correlation analyses revealed that gratitude, forgiveness, and spirituality had positive significant relationship with psychological well-being and significant negative relationship with psychological distress. Structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that gratitude, forgiveness, and spirituality were direct and indirect predictors of mental health, while meaning in life significantly and partially mediated these relationships. Conclusions: Findings underscore the central role of meaning in life in linking self-transcendent traits to mental health among postgraduate students, offering implications for cultur-ally sensitive university-based mental health interventions.