to make adaptive choices , people should sometimes exhibit patience , forgoing immediate benefits to acquiring more valuable future rewards . humans account for future consequences when making temporal decisions , whereas many animal species wait only a few seconds for delayed benefits . the extreme differences between humans and nonhumans seem to provide powerful evidence that patience is uniquely a human trait ( 1 ) . a major focus of attention in psychology is on the determinants and consequences of well - being . personality traits and character strengths are the strongest and most consistent predictors of well - being ( 2 ) . there is also evidence of a genetic link between personality and well - being ( 3 ) . while the role of some personality traits such as gratitude , are comprehensively explored , scientific study of others such as patience are neglected . patience is commonly said to be a virtue , but not commonly included in the contemporary discussions of the good life . psychologists pay scant attention to this virtue , although they study it under related guises such as gratification delay ( 4 ) . in recent years , a 3-factor patience scale ( 3-fps ) was designed to measure three types of patience : interpersonal , life hardship and daily hassles patience ( 5 , 6 ) . life hardship represents patience toward long - term goals or hardships ( e.g. , chronic illness ) while daily hassles represents patience toward frustrating situations in daily life ( e.g. , traffic jams ) . interpersonal patience , for example , has a strong correlation with agreeableness , but life hardship and daily hassles patience have moderate correlations . however , it is not clear whether these relationships would hold across cultures in the same way . to establish the generalizability of patience as a unique predicator of mental well - being , it is important to show its cross - cultural consistency the current study aimed to examine the relationship between patience and mental health , subjective well - being and personality factors , in an iranian population . although all three types of patience are expected to correlate with higher levels of mental health and well - being , no hypothesis was made regarding the strength of these relationships . the age range of these 123 female and 129 male subjects was from 19 to 45 , with a mean of 23.43 and a standard deviation of 3.45 . the persian versions of the following measures were administered ; they have been previously used in the iranian samples ( except the patience scale ) and had proven to be valid . this 11 item scale is designed to measure three types of patience : interpersonal ( i am patient with other people ) , life hardship ( i am able to wait - out tough times ) , and daily hassles patience ( in general waiting in lines does not bother me ) . the 3-fps has internal consistency reliability , convergent validity and high test - retest reliability ( 5 , 6 ) . in the current study , items were translated into persian and the adequacy of translations was confirmed by having the persian version of questionnaire items translated back into english . similar to the original 3-fps ( 6 ) the persian scale , in the current study , had a three - factor structure , consisting of interpersonal patience (  = 0.74 , m = 3.55 , sd = 0.75 ) , long - term life hardships patience (  = 0.81 , m = 3.37 , sd = 0.93 ) , and short - term daily hassles patience (  = 0.64 , m = 3.19 , sd = 0.91 ) . cronbach s alpha was 0.82 for the 3-fps ( m = 3.39 ; sd = 0.67 ) . this five - item widely used measure of life satisfaction was used to measure the cognitive aspect of subjective well - being ( 7 ) . the persian version of this scale has convergent validity and test - retest and internal reliability , with coefficient alpha at 0.83 ( 8) . evidence of relative psychological dysfunction was obtained with the widely - used ghq-12 . this well - validated scale is a self - report instrument of psychological components of ill - health . the ghq-12 focuses on breaks in the normal function , rather than upon lifelong traits ( 9 ) . the persian version of the ghq-12 has high level of internal reliability ( with coefficient alpha at 0.87 ) and convergent validity with global quality of life scores ( 10 ) . the costello and comrey s ( 11 ) scales assess depression ( 14 items ) and anxiety ( 9 items ) as traits rather than states . cronbach s alphas for the persian versions of depression and anxiety scales are 0.90 and 0.84 , respectively ( 12 ) . the big - five factors of personality ( openness , conscientiousness , extraversion , agreeableness , and emotional stability ) were measured using the 20-item , self - report mini international personality item pool - big five ( 13 ) . coefficient alphas of the persian versions of these five factors ranged from 0.59 to 0.73 ( 14 ) . the current study used a cross - sectional design and a convenience non - random sampling method . data were collected using self - administered questionnaires delivered to the students in person during the 2011 - 2012 academic year . the data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics including correlation , regression , and factor analyses by the spss software , version . this 11 item scale is designed to measure three types of patience : interpersonal ( i am patient with other people ) , life hardship ( i am able to wait - out tough times ) , and daily hassles patience ( in general waiting in lines does not bother me ) . the 3-fps has internal consistency reliability , convergent validity and high test - retest reliability ( 5 , 6 ) . in the current study , items were translated into persian and the adequacy of translations was confirmed by having the persian version of questionnaire items translated back into english . similar to the original 3-fps ( 6 ) the persian scale , in the current study , had a three - factor structure , consisting of interpersonal patience (  = 0.74 , m = 3.55 , sd = 0.75 ) , long - term life hardships patience (  = 0.81 , m = 3.37 , sd = 0.93 ) , and short - term daily hassles patience (  = 0.64 , m = 3.19 , sd = 0.91 ) . cronbach s alpha was 0.82 for the 3-fps ( m = 3.39 ; sd = 0.67 ) . this five - item widely used measure of life satisfaction was used to measure the cognitive aspect of subjective well - being ( 7 ) . the persian version of this scale has convergent validity and test - retest and internal reliability , with coefficient alpha at 0.83 ( 8) . evidence of relative psychological dysfunction was obtained with the widely - used ghq-12 . this well - validated scale is a self - report instrument of psychological components of ill - health . the ghq-12 focuses on breaks in the normal function , rather than upon lifelong traits ( 9 ) . the persian version of the ghq-12 has high level of internal reliability ( with coefficient alpha at 0.87 ) and convergent validity with global quality of life scores ( 10 ) . the costello and comrey s ( 11 ) scales assess depression ( 14 items ) and anxiety ( 9 items ) as traits rather than states . cronbach s alphas for the persian versions of depression and anxiety scales are 0.90 and 0.84 , respectively ( 12 ) . the big - five factors of personality ( openness , conscientiousness , extraversion , agreeableness , and emotional stability ) were measured using the 20-item , self - report mini international personality item pool - big five ( 13 ) . coefficient alphas of the persian versions of these five factors ranged from 0.59 to 0.73 ( 14 ) . the current study used a cross - sectional design and a convenience non - random sampling method . data were collected using self - administered questionnaires delivered to the students in person during the 2011 - 2012 academic year . the data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics including correlation , regression , and factor analyses by the spss software , version . this 11 item scale is designed to measure three types of patience : interpersonal ( i am patient with other people ) , life hardship ( i am able to wait - out tough times ) , and daily hassles patience ( in general waiting in lines does not bother me ) . the 3-fps has internal consistency reliability , convergent validity and high test - retest reliability ( 5 , 6 ) . in the current study , items were translated into persian and the adequacy of translations was confirmed by having the persian version of questionnaire items translated back into english . similar to the original 3-fps ( 6 ) the persian scale , in the current study , had a three - factor structure , consisting of interpersonal patience (  = 0.74 , m = 3.55 , sd = 0.75 ) , long - term life hardships patience (  = 0.81 , m = 3.37 , sd = 0.93 ) , and short - term daily hassles patience (  = 0.64 , m = 3.19 , sd = 0.91 ) . cronbach s alpha was 0.82 for the 3-fps ( m = 3.39 ; sd = 0.67 ) . this five - item widely used measure of life satisfaction was used to measure the cognitive aspect of subjective well - being ( 7 ) . the persian version of this scale has convergent validity and test - retest and internal reliability , with coefficient alpha at 0.83 ( 8) . this well - validated scale is a self - report instrument of psychological components of ill - health . the ghq-12 focuses on breaks in the normal function , rather than upon lifelong traits ( 9 ) . the persian version of the ghq-12 has high level of internal reliability ( with coefficient alpha at 0.87 ) and convergent validity with global quality of life scores ( 10 ) . the costello and comrey s ( 11 ) scales assess depression ( 14 items ) and anxiety ( 9 items ) as traits rather than states . illustrating depression is the self - report , cronbach s alphas for the persian versions of depression and anxiety scales are 0.90 and 0.84 , respectively ( 12 ) . the big - five factors of personality ( openness , conscientiousness , extraversion , agreeableness , and emotional stability ) were measured using the 20-item , self - report mini international personality item pool - big five ( 13 ) . coefficient alphas of the persian versions of these five factors ranged from 0.59 to 0.73 ( 14 ) . the current study used a cross - sectional design and a convenience non - random sampling method . data were collected using self - administered questionnaires delivered to the students in person during the 2011 - 2012 academic year . the data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics including correlation , regression , and factor analyses by the spss software , version . patience was positively correlated with the big - five and life satisfaction , and negatively correlated with depression , anxiety , and the ghq . there were no gender differences in patience . with the effects of the big five controlled , the 3 fps still significantly predicted life satisfaction (  = 0.22 , p < 0.01 ) , depression (  = -0.29 , p < 0.01 ) , anxiety (  = -0.38 , p < 0.01 ) , and general health (  = -0.16 , p < 0.01 ) .   gender coded 0 = female , 1 = male a series of regression were applied to assess discriminant validity of the three factors of patience ( table 2 ) . daily hassles was the strongest predictor of life satisfaction , closely followed by life hardship . the results of the current study , as predicted , showed that patience is associated with higher levels of mental health and subjective well - being , which is consistent with what had been found previously ( 6 ) . the present study , therefore , provided a cross - cultural confirmation to conclude that patience can predict mental health and positive functioning . life hardship patience was a better predictor of depression and ghq , showing that long - term patience may affect depression and general health . daily hassles patience was a better predictor of life satisfaction , suggesting that short - term patience is more beneficial for hedonic well - being and interpersonal patience can predict anxiety better . the three - dimension factor structure of the patience scale also appears to exhibit external validity , where interpersonal patience was more strongly related to the interpersonal factor from the big - five , agreeableness . to help people overcome life hardship or daily hassles , they should be equipped with mechanisms designed to promote , for example , avoidance of forgoing immediate benefits to acquiring more valuable future rewards where there is a choice . individuals who are approach motivated have higher baseline activation of the left prefrontal cortex than the right prefrontal cortex , whereas persons who are avoidance motivated have higher baseline activation of the right prefrontal cortex than the left prefrontal cortex ( 15 - 17 ) . moreover , not achieving or delay of a goal can be threatening one s self - esteem . it is possible to ignore , or utilize attentional shifting away from the cause of the stress ( avoidance ) . thus , while delayed in traffic one may simply think about last night s volleyball game ( 18 ) . another way is emotion reappraisal ( 5 ) and such ability , among others , is linked to right hemisphere dominance ( 19 ) . given these findings , prefrontal asymmetries might be considered as a possible neurological substrate of patience . future research should examine greater diversity among individuals , as well as studying other cultures .
background : while the role of some personality traits has been comprehensively explored , scientific study of others , such as patience has been neglected . 
 psychologists have paid scant attention to patience as a personality trait , character strength or virtue.objectives:the current study examined the relationship between patience and life satisfaction , mental health , and personality.materials and methods : a sample of 252 iranian college students ( 129 females and 123 males ) completed the 3-factor patience scale , satisfaction with life scale , general health questionnaire , anxiety and depression scales and mini international personality item pool - big five.results:the three types of patience ( interpersonal , life hardship , and daily hassles ) were associated with higher levels of life satisfaction and lower levels of depression , anxiety and psychological dysfunction . 
 patience also showed moderate relationship with the big - five factors of personality . 
 after controlling the personality factors , patience managed to explain additional unique variance in life satisfaction and mental health indicators.conclusions:patience is a unique predictor of mental well - being . 
 it is suggested that long - term patience is more important for depression and general health , whereas short - term patience is more beneficial for hedonic well - being .