Examining Relationships between Social Capital, Emotion Experience and Life Satisfaction for Sustainable Community

Abstract

As an important component of urban construction, the community sustainable construction is of great significance to the social development. Despite the importance of the social dimension of community sustainability, it has received relatively little attention when compared to the sustainability of environmental and economic dimensions. Based on the literature review, it is found that the social dimension of the sustainable community, such as residents’ psychological feelings, social capital, has a strong effect on the sustainability of communities. This paper, therefore, conducts an empirical study on the mediating role of emotion experience on the associations between social capital and life satisfaction. Research on the relationship between them can help to generate synergies and strengthen the effect of promoting community sustainable development. A total of 229 complete responses from residents in China is used for data analysis. Results from the multiple linear regression analysis indicate that social capital has the significant positive effect on life satisfaction; the influence of social capital on life satisfaction is partly mediated by positive and negative affect, the social capital improves the life satisfaction through promoting positive affect, while it enhances the life satisfaction through restraining the negative affect. Based on the relationship between them, the relevant recommendations for the measures on the sustainable community can be proposed.