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The Social Functions of the Emotion of Gratitude via Expression
Abstract
Recent theory posits that the emotion of gratitude uniquely functions to build a high-quality relationship between a grateful person and the target of his or her gratitude, that is, the person who performed a kind action (Algoe et al., 2008). Therefore, gratitude is a prime candidate for testing the dyadic question of whether one person's grateful emotion has consequences for the other half of the relational unit, the person who is the target of that gratitude. The current study tests the critical hypothesis that being the target of gratitude forecasts one's relational growth with the person who expresses gratitude. The study employed a novel behavioral task in which members of romantic relationships expressed gratitude to one another in a laboratory paradigm. As predicted, the target's greater perceptions of the expresser's responsiveness after the interaction significantly predicted improvements in relationship quality over 6 months. These effects were independent from perceptions of responsiveness following two other types of relationally important and emotionally evocative social interactions in the lab, suggesting the unique weight that gratitude carries in cultivating social bonds. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
... Some research focused on the impact of expressed gratitude on a benefactor's perceptions. Algoe et al. (2013) revealed that participants who heard gratitude expressed by their romantic partner forecasted a positive change in their relationship satisfaction over 6 months. Further, Algoe et al. (2016) found that the degree to which a romantic partner expressed gratitude was linked to their partner's perception of the expressor's responsiveness. ...
... Based on previous studies on the effects and usages of gratitude and apologies (Algoe et al., 2013;Lee et al., 2012), the current study hypothesized that expressed gratitude and apologies could increase a Japanese benefactor's perceived closeness toward a beneficiary. The predicted association between expressed gratitude/apologies and closeness was also hypothesized to be mediated by the benefactor's perception of the warmth, conscientiousness, and agreeableness of the beneficiary. ...
... Specifically, benefactors who received a message showing gratitude and both gratitude and apologies reported higher levels of closeness toward a beneficiary compared with those who received a message with apologies and a message without either gratitude or apologies. Consistent with past findings (e.g., Algoe et al., 2013;Williams & Bartlett, 2015) and theoretical accounts (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959), this study revealed that expressed gratitude improved a benefactor's perception toward a beneficiary, which was represented as higher levels of closeness. ...
The literature suggests that expressed gratitude improves the interpersonal relationship between a beneficiary and a benefactor. However, there is little research that has explored why thanking provides these positive effects, so this study investigated thanking mechanisms to explain reasons why people feel close to a beneficiary who expresses gratitude. This study also examines the effects of apologies, which are sometimes used to show gratitude in Japan. In this experimental study, 671 Japanese participants reported their perceived closeness, warmth, conscientiousness, and agreeableness to a hypothetical beneficiary who expressed gratitude, apologies, or both after a benefit was provided. The results revealed that benefactors who received a message indicating gratitude and both gratitude and apologies reported higher levels of closeness toward a beneficiary than those who received a message with only apologies and a message without either gratitude or apologies. A structural equation model further indicated that warmth and conscientiousness mediated the link between expressed gratitude/apologies and perceived closeness.
... For example, Algoe et al. (2008) observed that students who express more gratitude to their benefactors after receiving gifts report higher relationship quality in natural settings. Similarly, a longitudinal study has shown that individuals' gratitude to their partners positively predicts their relationship quality six months later (Algoe et al., 2013). Furthermore, Caleon et al. (2017) conducted a two-week gratitude intervention and found that, compared to the control group, the intervention group adolescents have higher quality parent-child relationship. ...
... Specifically, higher interpersonal gratitude prospectively predicted better parent-child relationship, which in turn prospectively predicted higher life satisfaction. This is consistent with previous studies that revealed parent-child relationship related to interpersonal gratitude (Algoe et al., 2008(Algoe et al., , 2013Caleon et al., 2017), and life satisfaction (Qiu et al., 2022;Zhu & Shek, 2020). Importantly, this finding further corroborates the psycho-social model. ...
Existing literature on the relationship between interpersonal gratitude and life satisfaction in adolescents has been limited in terms of scope and methodology. Based on the psycho-social model proposed by Alkozei et al. (J Happiness Stud 19:1–24, 2018) and the attachment security enhancement model, this study used a three-wave longitudinal design to test both the mediating role of parent–child relationship and the moderating effect of attachment insecurity in the link between interpersonal gratitude (e.g., gratitude to parents) and life satisfaction among adolescents. A total of 1131 Chinese adolescents (Mage = 12.92, SD = 0.70; 51.5% girls) participated in this study. Overall, the results of the moderated mediation model indicated that, after controlling for baseline life satisfaction, parent–child relationship, age, and sex, interpersonal gratitude was longitudinally associated with parent–child relationship only for adolescents high in attachment insecurity, which in turn predicted improved life satisfaction. These findings have implications for interventions aimed at promoting well-being among adolescents with varying degrees of attachment insecurity.
... While anger is felt when a person feels undervalued by another, gratitude is felt when a person benefits from another person's actions and feels valued (Sznycer et al., 2021). The expression of anger can effectively engage attention and resolve other people's undervaluation (Lench et al., 2016;van Kleef & Côté, 2022), while the expression of gratitude can effectively strengthen the relationship between the beneficiary and the benefactor (Algoe et al., 2013;Sels et al., 2021;Stellar et al., 2017;van Kleef & Côté, 2022). Despite extensive research documenting the functions of expressing these social emotions, there are notable variations in how people evaluate events where these emotions are expressed. ...
... Gratitude expression has been shown to effectively strengthen the relationship between the beneficiary and the benefactor (Algoe et al., 2013;Stellar et al., 2017). However, Zhang et al. (2018) found that explicit verbal expression of gratitude predicted negative mood among Chinese participants and that this effect was mediated by people's beliefs about what gratitude expression would engender. ...
The present study investigates the association between people’s beliefs about emotion and their overall satisfaction with a social interaction. We focus on three specific aspects to examine this association: (a) utility beliefs—a dimension of emotion beliefs; (b) emotion expression—an emotion channel; and (c) four social emotions—anger, other-embarrassment, gratitude, and other-pride. We examine whether people’s utility beliefs about expressing a social emotion can predict their evaluation of a social interaction when they express (vs. suppress) their social emotion. Results (N = 209) consistently show that when people express their social emotion, their utility beliefs positively predict their satisfaction with an event. However, when people suppress their gratitude, their utility beliefs negatively predict their satisfaction, an effect not observed in the other three emotion events. These findings corroborate the claim that emotion beliefs impact people’s emotional lives. Implications for research on emotion beliefs and motivated emotion regulation are discussed.
... Teachers can also show the student's space and how students should respect other people's space. Teachers can also teach students to show patience in the face of all odds, learn to follow directions and be positive in any circumstance (Algoe, Fredrickson and Gable, 2013). Studies have shown that social interaction improves student learning not only by enhancing their knowledge. ...
... Furthermore, physical activity enhances cognitive skills such as focus and attention, as well as improving behaviors and attitudes in the classroom (Haney, and Bissonnette, 2011). • Emotional activities: Emotional activities are varied to achieve the goals of developing self-control, using polite words to express one's thoughts and emotions, making efforts to appreciate the feelings of fellow students, showing gratitude and empathy with others, and learning to make responsible decisions (Algoe, Fredrickson and Gable, 2013). Self-control is important for overcoming six basic emotions: anger, disgust, surprise, happiness, fear, and sadness (Siedlecka and Denson, 2018). ...
... The benefits of gratitude for romantic relationships have also been demonstrated through intervention studies. Algoe, Fredrickson, and Gable studied the impact of gratitude expression among heterosexual couples who engaged in a series of videotaped interactions on two occasions with 2 weeks between sessions [34]. During the videotaped interactions involving gratitude, each member of the couple was asked to discuss something kind that their relationship partner had done for them and was given an opportunity to thank their partner. ...
... Perceived responsiveness of partners' expressions of gratitude predicted improvements in relationship satisfaction 6 months later. The authors concluded that this provides evidence for the important role that gratitude plays in strengthening dyadic relationships [34]. ...
This chapter examines positive psychology theories and research findings on how gratitude contributes to happiness and well-being. Two theories are discussed that provide insight into why gratitude enhances well-being (i.e., Broaden-and-Build Theory; Find, Remind, and Bind Theory). Empirical findings are reviewed showing that gratitude relates to lower levels of psychological distress, higher levels of psychological well-being, and better physical health. Benefits of writing-based gratitude interventions such as maintaining gratitude journals and writing gratitude letters are described. Studies showing promising benefits of gratitude across several situations are also addressed (i.e., the workplace, romantic relationships, and aging). Finally, suggestions for enhancing gratitude in one’s life are provided along with recommendations for future research.
... Second, by relying on EASI theory and examining work meaningfulness as a mediator, this study reveals the theoretical mechanism through which patient gratitude expression affects nurses' innovative performance. While previous research examining the mechanisms through which gratitude expression affects the recipient has primarily investigated the mediating roles of recipients' cognition of the expresser and their relationship (Algoe et al., 2013;Williams and Bartlett, 2015), we introduce work meaningfulness as a mediator, which involves both affective and cognitive elements (Martela and Pessi, 2018), offering a new lens to understand Research model. how gratitude expression affects innovative performance. ...
... Second, we offer a new lens to understand the process through which the receipt of gratitude affects recipients' innovative performance. Specifically, previous research has mainly drawn on attribution theory and find-remind-and-bind theory, and examined that recipients' cognition of expresser and their relationship mediate the effect of gratitude on recipients' outcomes (Algoe et al., 2013;Williams and Bartlett, 2015), which pay little attention on the affective nature of gratitude. Interactive effect of work meaningfulness and supervisory support on innovative performance. ...
Based on emotions as social information (EASI) theory, the current study proposed how and when patient gratitude expression could promote nurses’ innovative performance. Using a time-lagged data of 649 nurses from three class A tertiary hospitals in China, the results showed that patient gratitude expression was positively related to nurses’ innovative performance, and nurses’ work meaningfulness mediated such effect. Furthermore, supervisory support moderated the relationship of work meaningfulness with nurses’ innovative performance, as well as the indirect relationship between patient gratitude expression and innovative performance through work meaningfulness, such that the indirect relationship was stronger when supervisory support is higher. Our research helps to expand our understanding of how patient gratitude expression as an organizational external factor influences nurses’ innovation in healthcare, and meanwhile, provides management insights for hospital managers to focus on patient gratitude expression and enhance nurse innovation.
... Teachers can also show the student's space and how students should respect other people's space. Teachers can also teach students to show patience in the face of all odds, learn to follow directions and be positive in any circumstance (Algoe, Fredrickson and Gable, 2013). Studies have shown that social interaction improves student learning not only by enhancing their knowledge. ...
... Furthermore, physical activity enhances cognitive skills such as focus and attention, as well as improving behaviors and attitudes in the classroom (Haney, and Bissonnette, 2011). • Emotional activities: Emotional activities are varied to achieve the goals of developing self-control, using polite words to express one's thoughts and emotions, making efforts to appreciate the feelings of fellow students, showing gratitude and empathy with others, and learning to make responsible decisions (Algoe, Fredrickson and Gable, 2013). Self-control is important for overcoming six basic emotions: anger, disgust, surprise, happiness, fear, and sadness (Siedlecka and Denson, 2018). ...
... showing gratitude in response to a benefit indicates that a person values the present, sustaining the norm of reciprocity (Algoe et al., 2013). Or showing disgust when someone eats rotten pizza communicates that such behavior is inappropriate, reinstating the norm of purity (Heerdink et al., 2019). ...
... When colleagues are loyal to others and provide costly benefits, the emotion elicited is gratitude (Algoe et al., 2008;Tesser et al., 1968), suggesting that the CEO is grateful for the offer to collude. Grateful interactions strengthen team members' relationships (Algoe et al., 2013;McCullough et al., 2001), constituting the social function of gratitude (Algoe, 2012). Gratitude motivates supporting the benefactor, even when it might be displeasing and tedious (Bartlett & DeSteno, 2006). ...
Corruption poses one of the biggest current societal problems that commonly originates in organizational settings. Most approaches explain corruption based on rational cost-benefit calculations, neglecting the role of emotions. This dominant approach stands in contrast to the observation that most corruption cases are emotionally charged. A growing set of articles, scattered across disciplines, documents that emotions predict corrupt behavior, that own corrupt conduct elicits emotions, and that third parties experience emotions in response to others’ corrupt acts. We propose that emotional antecedents drive or prevent corruption, whilst emotional consequences reinforce or deter future corrupt behavior. We integrated these diverse streams of research linking emotions and corruption in two steps: First, we distilled established empirical facts related to the link between emotions and corruption from articles (k = 53) identified in a systematic, pre-registered literature review. Second, we developed an integrative framework based on legal and social norms that accounts for these phenomena. Our novel norms framework (a) structures the literature on the link of emotions and corruption, (b) sets a new research agenda, and (c) complements previous evidence-based anti-corruption policies.
... Research on the effects of benefactors' help in organizational crises (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic), including how and when, is still limited. Such research is important because individuals are embedded in social interactions by interpreting others' responses and responding accordingly (Algoe et al., 2013). Thus, we must capture others' reactions to help and their consequences to obtain a complete picture of the helping phenomenon during the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
... Second, we propose a two-path model based on the social functions of emotion perspective to answer the question of why receiving gratitude expression is crucial in a crisis. However, we cannot rule out other alternative mediators, such as perceived responsiveness (e.g., Algoe et al., 2013), which may play a role in this model. Thus, it is important to examine other important psychological mechanisms, such as energy, vigor, and passion. ...
Although organizational crises, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic, are shocks for employees, their expression of gratitude can be viewed as a silver lining. Drawing on social exchange theory and the social functions of emotion perspective, we develop a model that elucidates why and when benefactors who receive gratitude expression can perform better in the COVID-19 crisis. We propose that receiving gratitude expression as a potential consequence of providing crisis-related help to coworkers enhances one’s crisis self-efficacy and perceived social impact, which, in turn, positively relates to adaptation to a crisis, task performance, and helping behaviors toward leaders. The perceived novelty of the COVID-19 crisis strengthens the positive effect of receiving gratitude expression on crisis self-efficacy, and the perceived criticality of the crisis strengthens the positive effect of receiving gratitude expression on perceived social impact. A scenario-based experiment and five-wave field survey with Eastern and Western employees generally support our hypotheses.
... With a good social support system, college students begin to reconstruct their understanding of the world. Moreover, normal social interaction makes college students feel supported and cared for by others, which helps to maintain and improve the quality of existing interpersonal relationships, thereby obtaining a higher sense of social support (Algoe et al., 2013). To sum up, in warm and receptive psychological environment like this, the psychological impact of the epidemic on college students can be alleviated, which helps to rebuild belief in a just world. ...
Background
Campus lockdown orders were issued for the purpose of preventing and controlling COVID-19, which resulted in psychological problems among college students. However, the experiences they have during the pandemic may also lead to positive personal changes, including posttraumatic growth (PTG). The current study examined the mediating role of belief in a just world and meaning in life in social support and PTG during the COVID-19 campus lockdown.
Method
An online survey was conducted on 1711 college students in Hebei Province, China. Based on the survey results, a structural equation model was established.
Results
Social support positively predicted PTG. Furthermore, belief in a just world and meaning in life played a mediating role between social support and PTG respectively. Besides, social support could also predict PTG through the multiple serial mediating effect of belief in a just world and meaning in life.
Conclusions
These results indicated mechanisms by which social support influenced PTG, and this provided insights into how to promote post-traumatic growth among university students in the post-pandemic period.
... Social relationships can take the form of loving, hating, competing, cooperating, equal, or authoritarian actions. Some of the results of research conducted by Algoe et al.(Algoe et al., 2013;Bartlett & DeSteno, 2006;Chang et al., 2012) show that gratitude has an important role in building harmonious social relationships in life. Social care is one of the character values of gratitude. ...
This study aims to find out how the concept of personality gratitude in the development of Islamic education is described in the Quran. This research is included in the type of library research that uses qualitative data types. e main data source in this research is the Koranic verses that discuss gratitude. This study uses a subjective hermeneutic approach that emphasizes the interpreter's role in understanding and determining the meaning of the text about the verses of gratitude in Tafsr al-Misbah. According to the findings of the study, a grateful personality is synonymous with the term 'abdan syakuran. The term refers to a personality that always appreciates, recognizes, and uses God's grace in every situation. A person with a grateful personality has a noble character, which contains the character values of trustworthiness, qan'ah, tawadu', hard work, creativity, and prosocial actions. A grateful personality is needed to realize Islamic education's goals, namely the creation of religious and noble human beings. Therefore, we need the right strategy for instilling these values. The internalization of the gratitude personality in Islamic education can be carried out through several strategies, including tazkiyah, tazniyah, tadabburah, and tarabbutah.
... Apart from other-directed behaviors mentioned above, receiving gratitude from others can also encourage the gratitude receiver to conduct self-directed behavior. One study found that receiving gratitude from spouse predicted the gratitude receiver's perceived concurrent and 6-months followed-up relationship satisfaction within couples (Algoe et al., 2013). feedback-seeking from peers (M3 in Table 6: B = 0.858, p < 0.001), and employee informal learning behavior (M4 in Table 6: B = 0.308, p < 0.001) when leader gratitude expression was controlled for, thus supporting H2a, H2b, and H2c. ...
Previous research has found that gratitude expression from other can motivate employees to contribute more to organizational goals by displaying more OCB or higher work effort. We propose that, however, leader gratitude expression may also bring about benefits to the employees themselves by facilitating their self-development and long-term growth, which was ignored by researchers. Drawing on emotion as social information (EASI) theory, we examine the extent to which leader gratitude expression may enhance employees’ self-development behaviors, defined as proactive and self-starting behaviors that bring the focal employee learning opportunities, skill development and social integration. Using data collected from 182 MBA students from a university in Beijing, China (Study 1), and 255 organizational employees from a variety of industries (Study 2), we found that leader gratitude expression was positively related to employee work engagement, which in turn was positively related to three types of employee self-development behaviors (i.e. feedback-seeking from leader, feedback seeking from peer, and informal learning behavior). Furthermore, employee work engagement mediated the relationship between leader gratitude expression and the three employee self-development behaviors. These findings support the interpersonal benefits of leader gratitude expression on employees’ self-development behaviors, thus contributes to the literature of leader gratitude expression by identifying work engagement as a novel mechanism and self-development behaviors as novel consequences of it. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.
... Researchers hold that gratitude is more commonly experienced in communal relationships (Algoe, 2012;Algoe et al., 2010;Clark & Mills, 2012), and experiencing and expressing gratitude in communal relationships is crucial for maintaining (Gordon et al., 2012;Kubacka et al., 2011) and stimulating intimate bonds (Algoe et al., 2013;Lambert et al., 2010). Indebtedness is excluded from the investigation in communal relationships, as researchers believe that in communal relationships, such as between romantic partners, exchange is not governed by norms of reciprocity (Clark, 1984;Clark & Waddell, 1985). ...
Whereas previous research has often struggled to disentangle the behavioral effects of gratitude and indebtedness felt in response to favors received by individuals, the present article clearly manifests their unique functions by investigating what happens if not just the individual but also their romantic partner is involved in a mutual exchange of favors. We propose that people in communal relationships share each other's social debt toward others that are not part of the dyad, and the emotion of indebtedness plays a vital role in that process. Three preregistered experiments revealed that people's emotions (gratitude and indebtedness) toward favors that their partners receive from others, or extend to them, are similar to when they receive or extend these favors themselves. Study 1 (N = 470) revealed that participants experienced vicarious gratitude and indebtedness to favors extended to their partners by others. Additional studies suggested that social debt between participants and third parties could be repaid by (Study 2; N = 507) and repaid to (Study 3; N = 304) their partners. These effects did not exist for exchanges in noncommunal relationships, indicating that these could not be simply attributed to indirect reciprocity. Rather, we believe that social debt sharing is a core feature of communal relationships in social exchange, and the emotion of indebtedness forms the psychological mechanism underlying this process. Crucially, indebtedness but not gratitude drove people's responses to shared debts, suggesting a unique function of indebtedness in mediating the social exchange of communal dyads. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
... The expression of these negative emotions (and positive emotions too) conveys valuable information about the welfare of the expresser. Their expression, when appropriate to the relational context, supports human cooperation in nuanced ways that have been documented (e.g., Algoe, Fredrickson, & Gable, 2013;Clark, Ouellette, Powell, & Milberg, 1987;Donato, Pagani, Parise, Bertoni, & IaFrate, 2014;Feinberg, Willer, & Keltner, 2011;Gable & Reis, 2010;Semin & Manstead, 1982). There certainly exists broad theoretical disagreement on the nature of emotion among psychologists, but currently insufficient evidence that feeling and expressing heightened fear per se (rather than general distress) is evolutionarily determined and present at birth. ...
Grossmann proposes an interesting framework to explain how heightened fearfulness among humans could be evolutionarily adaptive in the context of cooperative care. I would like to propose that cooperative care may also be a potential mechanism promoting enhanced happiness expression among humans, shedding light on questions about the scope and boundary of the fearful ape hypothesis.
... The expression of these negative emotions (and positive emotions too) conveys valuable information about the welfare of the expresser. Their expression, when appropriate to the relational context, supports human cooperation in nuanced ways that have been documented (e.g., Algoe, Fredrickson, & Gable, 2013;Clark, Ouellette, Powell, & Milberg, 1987;Donato, Pagani, Parise, Bertoni, & IaFrate, 2014;Feinberg, Willer, & Keltner, 2011;Gable & Reis, 2010;Semin & Manstead, 1982). There certainly exists broad theoretical disagreement on the nature of emotion among psychologists, but currently insufficient evidence that feeling and expressing heightened fear per se (rather than general distress) is evolutionarily determined and present at birth. ...
The fearful ape hypothesis (FAH) presents an evolutionary-developmental framework stipulating that in the context of cooperative caregiving, unique to human great ape group life, heightened fearfulness was adaptive. This is because from early in human ontogeny fearfulness expressed and perceived enhanced care-based responding and cooperation with mothers and others. This response extends and refines the FAH by incorporating the commentaries' suggestions and additional lines of empirical work, providing a more comprehensive and nuanced version of the FAH. Specifically, it encourages and hopes to inspire cross-species and cross-cultural, longitudinal work elucidating evolutionary and developmental functions of fear in context. Beyond fear, it can be seen as a call for an evolutionary-developmental approach to affective science.
... The expression of these negative emotions (and positive emotions too) conveys valuable information about the welfare of the expresser. Their expression, when appropriate to the relational context, supports human cooperation in nuanced ways that have been documented (e.g., Algoe, Fredrickson, & Gable, 2013;Clark, Ouellette, Powell, & Milberg, 1987;Donato, Pagani, Parise, Bertoni, & IaFrate, 2014;Feinberg, Willer, & Keltner, 2011;Gable & Reis, 2010;Semin & Manstead, 1982). There certainly exists broad theoretical disagreement on the nature of emotion among psychologists, but currently insufficient evidence that feeling and expressing heightened fear per se (rather than general distress) is evolutionarily determined and present at birth. ...
... For an accessible article for a lay audience, seeKarns (2018). Studies show that the experience of gratitude makes people more altruistic(Karns et al. 2017), more prosocial(Tsang et al. 2019), more supportive(Moieni et al. 2019), and improves interpersonal relations(Algoe et al. 2013).Tsang et al. (2019) gives a good overview of previous research on gratitude and prosocial behaviour. ...
This work investigates what motivates environmental action through developing a case study on how ecological conscience forms in the ritual practices of a new religious movement. I conducted a two-year ethnographic study with a community of contemporary Heathens in eastern and southwestern Ontario to investigate how ritual practices are related to the formation of conscience in the group. I used participant observation and interviews to investigate how ritual is related to conscience formation, and how it can generate a sense of obligation to others, including nonhuman others. I draw on social psychology (especially terror management theory), cognitive science, anthropology, ritual studies, and philosophy to describe and interpret three ritual practices, each of which involve some sort of gift giving. First I discuss high sumbel, a ritual of sharing drinks and giving gifts, then Dísablót, an example of ancestor veneration in which offerings (a type of gift) are given to the dead, and finally the procession of Nerthus, in which offerings are made to a figure participants understand as a power of nature associated with a particular bioregion. I find that giving gifts and expressing thanks in ritual inspires a sense of gratitude and a desire to give in turn in participants. Among these Heathens this gratitude and felt sense of obligation extends beyond human relations to include the more than human world. When one gives a gift one develops an appreciation for what one has already received, and when ritual activities include things that make participants aware of their mortality, the values that come to mind during the activity can be operationalized. In this case, values of inclusion, gratitude, sharing, and generosity are reinforced through ritual practice and influence participants’ dispositions, attitudes, and habitual behaviours.
... Furthermore, research indicated that these two emotions play different functions in sociality. For example, accumulated literature suggested that gratitude contains a relationoriented function to promote intimate bonds (e.g., Algoe et al., 2013;Bartlett et al., 2012;Kubacka et al., 2011;Williams & Bartlett, 2015), whereas indebtedness contains an exchange-oriented function (e.g., Goyal et al., 2022;Naito & Sakata, 2010;. These functional differences may explain why helpers' intentions are influential to one's gratitude and indebtedness. ...
[IMPORTANT:
Abstract, method, and results were written using a randomized dataset produced by Qualtrics to simulate what these sections will look like after data collection. These will be updated following the data collection. For the purpose of the simulation, we wrote things in past tense, but no pre-registration or data collection took place yet.]
Gratitude and indebtedness are common emotions in response to a favor, but are experienced differently depending on situations. Tsang (2006) suggested that gratitude for a favor depended on perceived helper intention, while indebtedness did not. Specifically, she proposed that a benevolent helper intention yielded higher gratitude from beneficiaries when compared to a selfish one, whereas helper intention did not influence the level of indebtedness induced. In a pre-registered experiment with a US Prolific student sample (N = 1000), we conducted a replication and extension of Studies 2 and 3 from Tsang (2006). Tsang found support for the impact of the helper’s intention on gratitude (Study 2: η2p = .2, 90% CI = [0.08, 0.32]; Study 3: η2p = .14, 95% CI = [0.03, 0.26]), but not for indebtedness (Study 2: η2p = .01, 90% CI = [0.00, 0.08]; Study 3: η2p = .14, 95% CI = [0.00, 0.03]). [The following findings are simulated random noise and will be updated after data collection:]. We [found/failed to find] support for the effect on gratitude (Study 2: η2p < .001, 90% CI = [0.00, 0.03]; Study 3: η2p < .001, 90% CI = [0.00, 0.01]), and [found/failed to find] support for effect on indebtedness (Study 2: η2p = .03, 90% CI = [0.00, 0.08]; Study 3: η2p = .03, 90% CI = [0.00, 0.05]). We concluded that … [conclusion].
Extending the replication, we examined the impact of perceived helpers’ intention on perceived expectations for reciprocity (d = -0.13, 95% CI = [-0.27, 0.03]), beneficiaries’ reciprocity tendency (d = -0.12, 95% CI = [-0.27, 0.03]), and associations of perceived reciprocity expectations with gratitude (r = .01, 95%CI = [-.05, 0.07]) and indebtedness (r < .001, 95%CI = [-0.05, 0.06]). All materials, data, and code were made available on: https://osf.io/ghfy4/
... Social character values in gratitude include generosity, social responsibility, prosocial action, fairness, and sympathy (Wood, Froh & Geraghty, 2010), empathy and forgiveness , and gregariousness , and gregariousness (Wood, Froh, & Geraghty, 2010). In family life, gratitude encourages responsiveness (Algoe, Fredrickson & Gable, 2013) and mutual respect (Gordon, Impett, Kogan, Oveis, & Keltner, 2012). From a social perspective, gratitude also makes a person generous, strengthening emotional and social relationships (Lambert, Fincham, Stillman, & Dean, 2009). ...
Gratitude is teaching about morality that concerns all aspects of human life. This study aims to determine the spiritual values of gratitude in the Qur'an in relation to character in Islamic education. Through a subjective-cum-objective hermeneutic approach, the research results show that gratitude contains several character values that are needed in Islamic education. These character values include, amanah, qonā'ah, istiqāmah, tawāḍu', tawakal, optimistic, creative, hard work and social care. The results of this study indicate that gratitude is the main character that contains religious and social character values based on belief and faith in God. These character values are needed in achieving the goals of Islamic education.
... Aligning with the few studies that have explicitly examined perceptions of gratitude (e.g., A. M. Gordon et al., 2012;Schrage et al., 2022), past research employing dyadic designs indicates that one's gratitude is related to various positive relational outcomes for their partner (e.g., Algoe et al., 2010Algoe et al., , 2013; C. L. Gordon et al., 2011;Park, Johnson, et al., 2019;Schrage et al., 2022;Visserman et al., 2019), implying that perceiving others' gratitude toward the self is associated with positive social outcomes for the perceiver. However, no prior work has examined the partner effects of perceiving gratitude (i.e., a partner's outcomes in response to whether and how their gratitude is recognized). ...
Perceiving a partner’s gratitude has several benefits for romantic relationships. We aimed to better understand these associations by decomposing perceptions into accuracy and bias. Specifically, we examined whether accuracy and bias in perceiving a partner’s experience (Study 1: N dyads = 205) and expression (Study 2: N dyads = 309) of gratitude were associated with romantic relationship satisfaction. Using the Truth and Bias Model of Judgment, we found that perceivers generally underestimated their partner’s gratitude, and lower perceptions of gratitude were related to lower perceiver satisfaction. Perceivers reported greater satisfaction when they assumed their partner’s gratitude was similar to their own. Partners reported greater satisfaction when perceivers accurately gauged their partners’ gratitude experience (but not expression) and lower satisfaction when perceivers underestimated their gratitude expression (but not experience). Overall, by decomposing gratitude perceptions into accuracy and bias, we provide insight into how these components differentially relate to relationship satisfaction.
... Gratitude can be described as 'the willingness to recognise the unearned increments of value in one's experience' (Bertocci & Millard, 1963;p. 389) and is a popular positive psychology intervention which has received reasonably robust empirical support for its effectiveness, showing positive associations with subjective wellbeing and life satisfaction (Emmons & Shelton, 2002;Watkins et al., 2003), physical health (Emmons & McCullough, 2003), positive social relationships (e.g., Algoe et al., 2013) and reduced loneliness (O'Connell et al., 2016b). ...
... Find-remindand-bind theory suggests that gratitude serves to strengthen relationships with responsive interaction partners (Algoe, 2012;Algoe et al., 2008). Research supports this theory, as couples prompted to express gratitude to one another often report increases in positive feelings and relationship satisfaction (Algoe et al., 2013;Algoe et al., 2016;Algoe & Zhaoyang, 2015). Additional studies show that gratitude letter interventions can improve general feelings of closeness and social connection Boehm et al., 2011;Layous et al., 2017;Regan et al., 2022;Walsh, Armenta et al., 2022Wood et al., 2008). ...
Numerous investigations to date have established the benefits of expressing gratitude for improved psychological well-being and interpersonal relationships. Nevertheless, the social dynamics of gratitude remain understudied. Do the effects of gratitude differ when it is expressed privately, communicated directly to the benefactor one-to-one, or shared publicly? We tested this question in a preregistered intervention study. An ethnically and economically diverse sample of undergraduate students (N = 916) was randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: (1) write gratitude letters and do not share them (private gratitude), (2) share gratitude one-to-one with benefactors via text (1-to-1 gratitude), (3) share gratitude publicly on social media (public gratitude), or (4) track daily activities (control). Participants were asked to complete their assigned activity four times with different people (as applicable) over the course of about a week. Overall, participants assigned to any digital gratitude intervention experienced improvements in state gratitude, positive emotions, negative emotions, elevation, connectedness, support, and loneliness, relative to controls. Relative to all other conditions, participants assigned to text their benefactors showed the biggest boosts in social connectedness and support. Our findings show that easily scalable digital gratitude interventions can advance the well-being of young college students.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-022-00150-5.
... Gratitude can be described as 'the willingness to recognise the unearned increments of value in one's experience' (Bertocci & Millard, 1963;p. 389) and is a popular positive psychology intervention which has received reasonably robust empirical support for its effectiveness, showing positive associations with subjective wellbeing and life satisfaction (Emmons & Shelton, 2002;Watkins et al., 2003), physical health (Emmons & McCullough, 2003), positive social relationships (e.g., Algoe et al., 2013) and reduced loneliness (O'Connell et al., 2016b). ...
... Second, response to the benefits received is based upon the "experience" of the perceived benefits one receives. Put differently, expression of gratitude manifests in behavior that exceeds the call of duty, scope of responsibility, boundaries of one's work domain, and the norms of reciprocity (Algoe et al., 2013;Bock et al., 2016;Di Fabio et al., 2017;Fehr et al., 2017). ...
Distributive justice is known to have important emotional and affective outcomes. The present study explores the role of distributive justice as an antecedent to feelings of gratitude toward the organization. Borrowing from social exchange theory, we investigate the mediating role of gratitude in the relationship between “perceived fairness in distributive justice” and “employees’ organization citizenship behaviors (OCB).” Time-lagged, multi-source data was collected from 185 employees and their supervisors employed in a large manufacturing organization based in East India. Two significant findings emerge. First, the results indicate that feelings of gratitude signal fair distribution of benefits such that the employees go beyond the call of the duty to invest in OCB. Second, engagement in such acts seems to nullify their social debts highlighted in the social exchange perspective. Thus, a strong moral emotion, gratitude is a powerful vehicle that drives employees to act in the organization’s interests because doing is desirable and rightful. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
... We see this as a very effective theory for explaining how gratitude enhances happiness. Algoe's research has garnered considerable support for her model [40][41][42], and it has added the approach of relationship science to the study of gratitude. As gratitude is essentially an "other-focused" emotion, we see this as a necessary perspective. ...
In this chapter we review recent research in the relationship of gratitude to happiness. First, we show how gratitude is a critical component of the good life. Because gratitude is vital to wellbeing, it is important to establish the causes of state and trait gratitude. We explain an appraisal approach to grateful emotion and show how certain benefit interpretations are critical to the experience of gratitude. In this context, we describe an encouraging new paradigm that has been applied to the study of gratitude: Cognitive Bias Modification. This experimental approach has helped to establish the causal status of interpretations to gratitude, and we describe how this methodology should help to understand gratitude in future research. Recent research on the cognitive antecedents of gratitude has shown that the nature of the benefactor matters to experiences of gratitude, and in this regard, a divine benefactor may create a unique experience of gratitude. Gratitude scholars have now turned to the question: How does gratitude enhance happiness? We present research and theories that have attempted to speak to this issue. Finally, we explore the question: Who benefits most from gratitude interventions? Research has supplied some surprising answers to this question.
... In this case, not all of these expressions can be categorized as acknowledging the major favor, such as irony or apologizing (Faqe, Jbrael, & Muhammad, 2019;Hong & Song*, 2020;Meiramova & Kulzhanova, 2015) Besides, thanking means apologizing in one conversation, like a drama performance. Algoe, Fredrickson, & Gable (2013) argue that there is a social function of the emotion of gratitude via expression that is influenced the gender, society, and the setting of communication. In addition, Faisal (2017) states that thanking expressions are presented by gender performance and the way of communication. ...
This study investigated thanking expressions used in a drama performance at the English Department of Pasir Pengaraian. Thanking expression has an essential role in giving a sense of communication. The research design was descriptive qualitative, especially in phenomenology. The data was collected from 29 sixth-semester students. The data were collected by using non-participant observation. This research data was analyzed by using Hymes' theory (1972) and Yule (1996). Based on the research, there were 60 thanking expressions used in this drama. The result of data showed some implied meanings of thanking expressions in this drama. There were 14 data (27%) as acknowledging a major favor, 8 data (15%) as acknowledging a favor, 4 data (7%) as assuring a person of one's gratitude, 3 data (6%) as dismissing a person's service, 15 data (29%) as closing the conversation, 6 data (10%) as accepting an offer, 1 data (2 %) as making the hearer feel good (phatic function), and 1 data (2 %) as ending the conversation. Thus, the implied meaning of thanking expression would be a particular function to fill gab language and culture in teaching and learning, especially in drama performance
... Expressing gratitude is a characteristic behavioral response to the positively-valenced experience of feeling grateful for another's kind gesture [11][12][13] . Methodologically sophisticated longitudinal dyadic studies show that expressing gratitude is associated with beneficial relational outcomes for both members of an ongoing relationship independently of social support and other behaviors 14,15 . Critical for the present work, gratitude is frequently expressed between romantic partners in everyday life 15-17 , and both one-time in-lab experiments as well as correlational evidence suggest that gratitude expression appears to draw the other partner in to the OPEN Results Data analysis overview. ...
Close social connections drive mental and physical health and promote longevity. Positive, other-focused behavior like expressing gratitude may be a key mechanism for increasing close bonds. Existing evidence consistent with this claim is predominantly correlational, likely driven by challenges in causally influencing and sustaining behavior change in the context of ongoing relationships. This 5-week field experiment with daily data from couples provides the first evidence for a brief, low-cost behavioral technique to increase everyday expressed gratitude to a romantic partner. Random assignment to the gratitude expression treatment (GET) increased the amount of time couples spent co-present in everyday life, from the weeks before GET to the weeks after, relative to the control condition. This effect was mediated by the change in expressed gratitude. Voluntary co-presence is an important behavioral indicator of close bonds in non-human animals. Further analyses with a functional genotype related to the oxytocin system (rs6449182) suggest a neurochemical pathway involved in the effects of expressing gratitude. Together, this evidence bridges animal and human research on bonding behavior and sets up future experiments on biopsychosocial mechanisms linking close bonds to health.
... To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the predictive utility of the quality of gratitude expressions on helping behavior. In line with theoretical arguments that gratitude expressions are more likely to be effective in increasing a sense of social connectedness (Algoe et al., 2013) and signaling the impact of one's help (Grant & Sonnentag, 2010) when they include more elaborated linguistic signals of appreciation (Yoshimura & Berzins, 2017), our findings indicate that the quality of gratitude expressions matters to increase future help provision. More importantly, our work highlights that highquality expressions of gratitude can be more critical for helpers who experience low autonomous motivation in a helping episode. ...
Moral identity has been considered an important predictor of prosocial behavior. This article extends prior research by investigating how and when moral identity predicts helping behavior. Specifically, we examine the mediating effect of episodic autonomous motivation on the relationship between moral identity and future helping intentions. We also test the moderating effect of an important contextual factor in helping episodes: the quality of the gratitude expression received by helpers. In two studies using autobiographical recall tasks with different samples (Study 1: N = 134, college students; Study 2: N = 192, adult workers), we found convergent evidence that helpers with high moral identity experience higher autonomous motivation in a helping episode, which in turn increases their willingness to help the same beneficiary in the future. We further found support for the interactive effects between autonomous motivation and gratitude quality on future helping intentions. High-quality gratitude expressions are particularly important in predicting subsequent helping for helpers with low episodic autonomous motivation. In this case, high-quality gratitude expressions can compensate for the lack of intrinsic motivation in a helping episode and increase future help provision.
... Acting as an emotional currency for the achievement of reward, gratitude and pride are vital to the function of a society, allowing one to create interpersonal relationships (Algoe, Fredrickson, & Gable, 2013;Algoe, Haidt, & Gable, 2008). and build self-confidence (Tracy & Robins, 2007b;Weiner, Russell, & Lerman, 1979). ...
Backgrounds:
Gratitude and pride are both benefit-related emotions, whereby the pride attributes
success to oneself and gratitude to another. Gratitude and pride are vital to the
function of a society, allowing one to create interpersonal relationships and build
self-confidence. Despite growing interest in the neural underpinnings of positive
emotions and subjective feelings, we know very little about how these emotions are
represented in the brain and computationally updated over time by new experience.
Aims of the study:
We aimed to fill the gap by finding the specific neural representations of the
dynamic emotional experience of gratitude and pride, and the functional neural
substrates for updating positive emotions in general. Furthermore, we also aimed to
find the best computational models to give the best explanations how these two
emotions are updated as the environmental factors change.
Methods:
We developed a novel behavioral task based on the gameshow “Who Wants to be a
Millionaire”, which we used together with functional MRI, and computational
modeling. We investigated which brain regions are involved in representing
gratitude and pride, how the human brain keeps track of these emotions over time
and how it updates them when new information is available.
13
Results:
We found that gratitude was more associated with neural activities in the bilateral
temporoparietal junction (TPJ), which has previously been implicated in Theory of
Mind. In contrast, pride was more associated with neural activities in the caudate
nucleus, which is part of the reward system, and hippocampus. Importantly, when
we look for neural activity parametrically modulated with the reported magnitude
of gratitude feelings we found correlations mainly in the motor cortex (precentral
gyrus), reward system (ventral striatum, putamen) and Theory of Mind network
(temporal pole). In contrast, neural activity pertaining to the strength of the feeling
of pride was found in the bilateral putamen. Moreover, activity in ventromedial
prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) was related to an emotional prediction error signal,
suggesting that this region might be involved in the process of updating our level of
gratitude and pride feelings. Computational modeling revealed different models for
gratitude and pride. Gratitude model uniquely involved the prediction of others’
behavior, while pride model involved mainly the reward.
Implications:
Our findings delineate the computational mechanisms and neural circuitry for
positive emotions that accompany the attribution of getting reward whether it is due
to one's own effort or help of others. Besides, our studies contribute to theories of
emotions in several different aspects, especially to the newest theory of constructed
emotion. Our findings have clinical implications for developing new
psychotherapies for patients with emotional disorders.
Although research has shown that employees’ help reception always promotes future help provision, the distinctions between the types of repaying behaviors have been overlooked in organizational research. Thus, for the first time, the present study distinguishes between two types of repaying behaviors—pay-it-back (returning a favor to the help provider) and pay-it-forward (reciprocating a favor to a third party)—in the workplace and investigates their emotional and motivational mechanisms using broaden-and-build and regulatory focus theory. Analyzing three-wave data collected from 562 employees in China, the results show that while receiving help results in both pay-it-back and pay-it-forward behaviors through the mediation of gratitude, through the mediation of indebtedness, receiving help leads only to pay-it-back behaviors. Moreover, employees’ regulatory focus moderates the associations between receiving help and emotions and repaying behaviors. Specifically, at a high promotion focus level, employees tend to experience a higher level of gratitude after receiving help, thus engaging in more pay-it-back and pay-it-forward behaviors; at a high prevention focus level, employees tend to experience a higher level of indebtedness, thus engaging only in pay-it-back behaviors. These findings therefore deepen the understanding of the “help leads to help” phenomenon and its underlying mechanism.
Resumo Este estudo teve como objetivo proporcionar evidências de validade e fidedignidade da Escala de Gratidão (G-20) para a população de adultos brasileiros. Especificamente, verificar a estrutura do questionário através da análise fatorial confirmatória, explorar a consistência interna da escala e as validades de critério concorrente e convergente. Trata-se de um estudo quantitativo, correlacional com delineamento transversal. A amostra por conveniência está composta por 348 adultos entre 18 e 59 anos das cinco regiões brasileiras. Os instrumentos utilizados foram questionário de dados sociodemográficos, G-20, GQ-6, DASS-21, PANAS e P-DURELL. A escala total demonstrou confiabilidade satisfatória (α = 0,92 e Ω = 0,71) e em todas as dimensões do instrumento. Além disso, a análise do ajustamento dos dados para a estrutura de quatro fatores apontou valor aceitável para uma boa adequação do modelo (RMSEA = 0,068, CFI= 0,956 e TLI= 0,949) e a predominância das correlações entre os instrumentos utilizados no estudo mostrou-se significativas.
Modern affective science—the empirical study of emotional responding and affective experience—has been active for a half-century. The Future of Affective Science special issue considers the history of this field and proposes new directions for the decades ahead. Contributors represent diverse theoretical perspectives, methodological expertise, and domains of study, and the special issue includes both literature reviews and new empirical studies as illustrations. This introductory article synthesizes the contributions, articulating the broader context of the current status of our field and highlighting common themes across articles as well as gaps notable even in this special issue. Sections of the article address theoretical and conceptual issues, research methodology, the questions we ask, and translation of basic affective science to applied domains. We conclude that much has been learned from the first 50 years of affective science, and it is now time for new theories, new research questions, and innovative methods for the decades ahead.
Why do people fall in love? Does passion fade with time? What makes for a happy, healthy relationship? This introduction to relationship science follows the lifecycle of a relationship – from attraction and initiation, to the hard work of relationship maintenance, to dissolution and ways to strengthen a relationship. Designed for advanced undergraduates studying psychology, communication or family studies, this textbook presents a fresh, diversity-infused approach to relationship science. It includes real-world examples and critical-thinking questions, callout boxes that challenge students to make connections, and researcher interviews that showcase the many career paths of relationship scientists. Article Spotlights reveal cutting-edge methods, while Diversity and Inclusion boxes celebrate the variety found in human love and connection. Throughout the book, students see the application of theory and come to recognize universal themes in relationships as well as the nuances of many findings. Instructors can access lecture slides, an instructor manual, and test banks.
Purpose
Building on the broaden-and-build theory and incorporating a self-regulatory perspective, this study examines the relationship between trait gratitude and subjective career success and investigates the mediating roles of growth mindset of work and career network breadth.
Design/methodology/approach
Time-lagged data were collected in three waves from a sample of 314 employees in China. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that trait gratitude is positively related to SCS, mediated by growth mindset of work as an indicator of psychological resources and career network breadth as an indicator of social resources. Trait gratitude is more strongly associated with network breadth (i.e., social resources) than with growth mindset (i.e., psychological resources).
Practical implications
Organizations may find trait gratitude an applicable addition to the selection criteria during the recruitment process.
Originality/value
By identifying trait gratitude as an antecedent of SCS and revealing its underlying mechanisms, the current study points to a new perspective on the study of career success.
We agree with Grossmann that fear often builds cooperative relationships. Yet he neglects much extant literature. Prior researchers have discussed how fear (and other emotions) build cooperative relationships, have questioned whether fear per se evolved to serve this purpose, and have emphasized that human cooperation takes many forms. Grossmann's theory would benefit from a wider consideration of this work.
People sometimes give thanks as a true expression of their feeling but also sometimes because they know gratitude expression helps to make a certain social impression. That is, some gratitude is expressed because of intrinsic motivations or extrinsic motivations. Such motivations affect the outcomes of behaviour. The present work assessed gratitude, trait tendency to manage socially desirable expressions and well-being across two studies (combined n = 398). Motivations to express gratitude were also measured and impression management goals were manipulated in Study 2. Results show that gratitude expression is highest when people want to make a good impression and extrinsic motives to express gratitude can moderate the relationship between gratitude and well-being. Implications for the measurement of gratitude and theoretical understanding of gratitude's social function are discussed.
Burnout is one of the most insidious challenges for healthcare professionals, and has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Gratitude is emerging as an intervention to reduce burnout. However, to the authors' best knowledge, no systematic review has previously been carried out to explore the impact of gratitude on burnout among healthcare professionals. The present study aimed to address this gap. A total of 95 publications were identified, of which 13 were included in the review. These studies provide preliminary evidence for the inverse association between gratitude and burnout, and the effectiveness of gratitude interventions in reducing burnout among healthcare professionals. Limitations of the current research and future directions are discussed, along with the implications for practice.
Expressing appreciation is essential for establishing interpersonal closeness, but virtual interactions are increasingly common and create social distance. Little is known about the neural and inter-brain correlates of expressing appreciation and the potential effects of virtual videoconferencing on this kind of interaction. Here, we assess inter-brain coherence with functional near-infrared spectroscopy while dyads expressed appreciation to one another. We scanned 36 dyads (72 participants) who interacted in either an in-person or virtual (Zoom®) condition. Participants reported on their subjective experience of interpersonal closeness. As predicted, expressing appreciation increased interpersonal closeness between dyad partners. Relative to 3 other cooperation tasks (i.e. problem-solving task, creative-innovation task, socio-emotional task), we observed increased inter-brain coherence in socio-cognitive areas of the cortex (anterior frontopolar area, inferior frontal gyrus, premotor cortex, middle temporal gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and visual association cortex) during the appreciation task. Increased inter-brain coherence in socio-cognitive areas during the appreciation task was associated with increased interpersonal closeness. These findings support the perspective that expressing appreciation, both in-person and virtually, increases subjective and neural metrics of interpersonal closeness.
We do not know what happens in initial interactions to spark platonic or romantic relationships. This requires data on relationships from their inception, tracked over time. Building on theory about relationship promotion, we identified three exemplar behaviors to test novel hypotheses about relationship development. When starting college, a greenhouse for relationship initiation, first-year undergraduates ( N = 143) reported initial interactions with potential friends and romantic partners, and then 129 of them reported back about those 591 people over the semester. As predicted, reports of each behavior—affectionate touch, shared laughter, and partner’s gratitude expression—were associated with immediate interest in affiliating with the new person, beyond their perceived warmth, competence, and attractiveness; theoretically derived social perceptual mechanisms explained these links. Critically, although not all potential connections blossomed into relationships, these behavioral precursors to relationship promotion predicted relationship development via post-interaction interest in affiliating. Findings are contextualized within attraction literature with implications for relationship development.
A variety of positive psychology intervention (PPI) activities can increase subjective well‐being. Still, there is variability in the impact of various PPI activities across people. In two studies, we examine strategies for personalizing a program of PPI activities to efficiently increase subjective well‐being. In Study 1 (N = 516), we examined participants' beliefs about and employment of various PPI activity selection strategies. Participants favored self‐selection over weakness‐based, strength‐based, or random activity assignments. When making activity selections for themselves, they reported using the weakness‐based strategy the most. The tendency to make weakness‐based activity selections related to negative affect whereas strengths‐based activity selections related to positive affect. In Study 2 (N = 112), we randomly assigned participants to complete a set of five PPI activities allocated either randomly, based on their skill weaknesses, or based on their self‐selections. Completing life‐skills lessons significantly increased subjective well‐being from baseline to post‐test. Furthermore, we found evidence for added benefits in terms of subjective well‐being, broad well‐being outcomes, and skills improvement of the weakness‐based and self‐selection personalization strategies compared with the random assignment of these activities. We discuss the implications for research, practice, and the well‐being of individuals and societies offered by the science of PPI personalization.
A grateful personality is one of the essential elements in the personality development of students. This personality is reflected in verbal and deeds as a manifestation of acknowledgment in the heart for the blessings. This personality encourages students to appreciate and repay the kindness of others. This study aims to determine the level of gratitude of junior high school students in East Kalimantan. This study used a mixed-method approach. Respondents in this study were 714 people. The mean test results showed that the level of students' gratitude at Junior High Schools in East Kalimantan was very high, with an average score of 4.6. The teacher's strategies in instilling a grateful personality are with advice, exemplary, assignments, habituation, and activity programs at school. The methods are by providing materials (lectures, advice, discussions, and questions and answers related to gratitude), exemplary by providing examples of the values of gratitude, giving demonstration tasks, and practice in gratitude, giving the task of making a list of good things that have been felt and should be grateful for every day, habituation to good things (instilling the nature of qana'ah, giving appreciation and motivation, presenting a sense of empathy around oneself, inviting self-introspection, giving charity, helping others, spreading smiles, greetings, visiting friends or teachers who are sick or grieving), and school programs (dhuha and dzuhur prayers in congregation, reading the Qur'an, praying before starting lessons, and giving sadaqah every Friday at school). The results of this study may have an implication to become a policy regulation for schools to support the development of a grateful personality for students of Junior High School.
“Gratitude” has multiple meanings. One distinction is between gratitude with and without a benefactor. This paper presents two daily diary studies examining the experience of gratitude without a benefactor. In the first, some participants wrote each day about something good caused by someone else whereas others wrote about something good caused neither by self nor other. In the second, all participants wrote each day about something good caused neither by self nor other. Both studies included a novel measure of gratitude designed to distinguish gratitude with and without a benefactor. Across both studies, participants reported feeling gratitude even without a benefactor, and the novel measure of gratitude predicted daily gratitude even after controlling for other gratitude measures. In study 2, participants reported that benefactorless gratitude made them feel the motivational goals of being more obligated, spiritual, resourceful, indebted, generous, celebratory and wanting to help someone else, even after controlling for joy. Some analyses suggest that gratitude with a benefactor is particularly associated with obligation. For instance, in study 1, daily gratitude with a benefactor was more related to obligation than gratitude without a benefactor. These studies suggest that distinctions between gratitude with versus without a benefactor warrant continued exploration.
How, from a theological standpoint, should we make sense of gratitude? This rich interdisciplinary volume is the first concertedly to explore theologies of gratitude from both Christian and Muslim perspectives. While the available literature has tended to rhapsodize gratitude to God and others as both a virtue and an obligation, this book by contrast offers something new by detailing ways in which gratitude is complicated by inequality: even to the point of becoming a vice. Gratitude now emerges as something more than a virtue and other than merely transactional. It can be a burden, bringing about indebtedness and an imbalance of power; but it may also be a resonant source of reconciliation and belonging. Topics discussed cover the personal and political dimensions of gratitude, including such issues as justice, multiculturalism, racism, imperialism, grief, memory and hope. The book assembles, from different traditions, some of the leading theologians of our times.
Based on Berry’s (1997) model of acculturation, the current study examined whether gratitude would moderate the association between intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and acculturative stress (i.e., moderation hypothesis), and mitigate the positive association between IU and psychological distress through acculturative stress (i.e., moderated mediation hypothesis). Participants were 171 international students with Chinese heritage from a Midwest public university. Results from PROCESS supported these hypotheses. First, the positive association between IU and acculturative stress was attenuated to a greater extent at higher compared to lower levels of gratitude. Second, the mediation effect of IU on psychological distress through acculturative stress was weaker among those with higher compared to lower levels of gratitude. Findings demonstrate the protective role of gratitude and the role of IU as a risk factor for psychological distress through acculturative stress. Implications for practice, training, and research are discussed.
How can we get the most out of our close relationships? Research in the area of personal relationships continues to grow, but most prior work has emphasized how to overcome negative aspects. This volume demonstrates that a good relationship is more than simply the absence of a bad relationship, and that establishing and maintaining optimal relationships entails enacting a set of processes that are distinct from merely avoiding negative or harmful behaviors. Drawing on recent relationship science to explore issues such as intimacy, attachment, passion, sacrifice, and compassionate goals, the essays in this volume emphasize the positive features that allow relationships to flourish. In doing so, they integrate several theoretical perspectives, concepts, and mechanisms that produce optimal relationships. The volume also includes a section on intensive and abbreviated interventions that have been empirically validated to be effective in promoting the positive features of close relationships.
The philosophical framework of strong relationality has gained greater attention in scholarship and yet empirically testing models built on this important framework are rare. The present study tests predictions made by the Strong Relationality Model of Relationship Flourishing (SRM), which centers on the role of Ethical Responsiveness for relationship health. In doing so, we introduce common fate modeling as a methodological approach for strong relationality research. We used longitudinal data from 1512 couples collected as part of the German longitudinal panel study of families. Results support the Strong Relationality Model's prediction that Ethical Responsiveness (as measured by perceived partner support) positively alters the impact of stress on Gratitude‐Recognition (elements of the Responsible Action domain of the SRM), which then increases couples' intimacy (an element of the Relational‐Connectivity domain of the SRM). Recommendations for clinical assessment and intervention are given as well as recommendations for future research on the Strong Relationality Model.
Historical and current methodologies in patient safety are based on a deficit‐based model, defining safety as the absence of harm. This model is aligned with the human innate negativity bias and the general philosophy of healthcare: to diagnose and cure illness, and to relieve suffering. Whilst this approach has underpinned measurable progress in healthcare outcomes, a common narrative in the healthcare literature indicates that this progress is stalling or slowing. It is important to learn from and improve poor outcomes, but the deficit‐based approach has some theoretical limitations. In this article, we discuss some of the theoretical limitations of the prevailing approach to patient safety, and introduce emerging, complementary approaches in this field of practice. Safety‐II and resilience engineering represent a new paradigm of safety, characterised by focusing on the entirety of work, with a systems‐wide lens, rather than single incidents of failure. More overtly positive approaches are available, specifically focusing on success – both outstanding success and everyday success ‐ including exnovation, appreciative inquiry, learning from excellence and positive deviance. These approaches are not mutually exclusive. The new methods described in this article are not intended as replacements of the current methods, rather they are presented as complementary tools, designed to allow the reader to take a balanced and holistic view of patient safety.
We investigated the relationship between the emotional states of gratitude and indebtedness in two studies. Although many have suggested that these affects are essentially equivalent, we submit that they are distinct emotional states. Following Heider (1958), we propose that with increasing expectations of return communicated with a gift by a benefactor, indebtedness should increase but gratitude should decrease. The results of two vignette studies supported this hypothesis, and patterns of thought/action tendencies showed these states to be distinct. In addition, we found that with increasing expectations communicated by a benefactor, beneficiaries reported that they would be less likely to help the benefactor in the future. Taken together, we argue that the debt of gratitude is internally generated, and is not analogous to an economic form of indebtedness.
This multimethod series of studies merges the literatures on gratitude and risk regulation to test a new process model of gratitude and relationship maintenance. We develop a measure of appreciation in relationships and use cross-sectional, daily experience, observational, and longitudinal methods to test our model. Across studies, we show that people who feel more appreciated by their romantic partners report being more appreciative of their partners. In turn, people who are more appreciative of their partners report being more responsive to their partners' needs (Study 1), and are more committed and more likely to remain in their relationships over time (Study 2). Appreciative partners are also rated by outside observers as relatively more responsive and committed during dyadic interactions in the laboratory, and these behavioral displays are one way in which appreciation is transmitted from one partner to the other (Study 3). These findings provide evidence that gratitude is important for the successful maintenance of intimate bonds.
Theory and evidence suggest that everyday positive emotions may be potent factors in resilience during periods of chronic stress, yet the body of evidence is scant. Even less research focuses on the adaptive functions of specific positive emotions in this critical context. In the current research, 54 women with metastatic breast cancer provided information about their emotional responses to benefits received to test hypotheses regarding the social functions of gratitude. One set of analyses provide support for the hypothesized role of ego-transcendence in feeling gratitude upon receipt of a benefit from another person. As predicted, in a second set of analyses, grateful responding to received benefits predicted an increase in perceived social support over three months only for women low in ambivalence over emotional expression. These findings add to evidence regarding the social causes and consequences of gratitude, supporting a view of gratitude as an other-focused positive emotion that functions to promote high-quality relationships. Discussion focuses on the chronically stressful context as an important testing ground for theory on gratitude and other positive emotions.
The emotion gratitude is argued to play a pivotal role in building and maintaining social relationships. Evidence is accumulating that links gratitude to increases in relationship satisfaction. Yet, there is currently little evidence for how gratitude does this. The present paper provides experimental evidence of gratitude facilitating relationship-building behaviours. Study 1 provides evidence that gratitude promotes social affiliation, leading one to choose to spend time with a benefactor. Study 2 offers further evidence of gratitude's ability to strengthen relationships by showing that gratitude facilitates socially inclusive behaviours, preferentially towards one's benefactor, even when those actions come at a cost to oneself.
This study used an attachment theoretical framework to investigate support-seeking and caregiving processes in intimate relationships. Dating couples (N = 93) were videotaped while one member of the couple (support seeker) disclosed a personal problem to his or her partner (caregiver). Results indicated that when support seekers rated their problem as more stressful, they engaged in more direct support-seeking behavior, which led their partners to respond with more helpful forms of caregiving. Responsive caregiving then led seekers to feel cared for and to experience improved mood. Evidence for individual differences was also obtained: Avoidant attachment predicted ineffective support seeking, and anxious attachment predicted poor caregiving. Finally, couples in better functioning relationships engaged in more supportive interactions, and participants' perceptions of their interaction were biased by relationship quality and attachment style.
Close relationship partners often share successes and triumphs with one another, but this experience is rarely the focus of empirical study. In this study, 79 dating couples completed measures of relationship well-being and then participated in videotaped interactions in which they took turns discussing recent positive and negative events. Disclosers rated how understood, validated, and cared for they felt in each discussion, and outside observers coded responders' behavior. Both self-report data and observational codes showed that 2 months later, responses to positive event discussions were more closely related to relationship well-being and break-up than were responses to negative event discussions. The results are discussed in terms of the recurrent, but often overlooked, role that positive emotional exchanges play in building relationship resources.
The emotion of gratitude is thought to have social effects, but empirical studies of such effects have focused largely on the repaying of kind gestures. The current research focused on the relational antecedents of gratitude and its implications for relationship formation. The authors examined the role of naturally occurring gratitude in college sororities during a week of gift-giving from older members to new members. New members recorded reactions to benefits received during the week. At the end of the week and 1 month later, the new and old members rated their interactions and their relationships. Perceptions of benefactor responsiveness predicted gratitude for benefits, and gratitude during the week predicted future relationship outcomes. Gratitude may function to promote relationship formation and maintenance.
This chapter examines the feeling of being grateful. It suggests feeling grateful is similar to other positive emotions that help build a person's enduring personal resources and broaden an individual's thinking. It describes various ways by which gratitude can transform individuals, organizations, and communities in positive and sustaining ways. It discusses the specific benefits of gratitude including personal and social development, community strength and individual health and well-being.
Though interest in the emotion of gratitude has historically focused on its role in social exchange, new evidence suggests a different and more important role for gratitude in social life. The find-remind-and-bind theory of gratitude posits that the positive emotion of gratitude serves the evolutionary function of strengthening a relationship with a responsive interaction partner (Algoe, Haidt, & Gable, 2008). The current article identifies prior, economic models of gratitude, elaborates on unique features of the find-remind-and-bind theory, reviews the accumulating evidence for gratitude in social life in light of this novel perspective, and discusses how the find-remind-and-bind theory is relevant to methodology and hypothesis testing. In sum, within the context of reciprocally-altruistic relationships, gratitude signals communal relationship norms and may be an evolved mechanism to fuel upward spirals of mutually responsive behaviors between recipient and benefactor. In this way, gratitude is important for forming and maintaining the most important relationships of our lives, those with the people we interact with every day.
Gratitude and indebtedness are differently valenced emotional responses to benefits provided, which have implications for interpersonal processes. Drawing on a social functional model of emotions, we tested the roles of gratitude and indebtedness in romantic relationships with a daily-experience sampling of both members of cohabiting couples. As hypothesized, the receipt of thoughtful benefits predicted both gratitude and indebtedness. Men had more mixed emotional responses to benefit receipt than women. However, for both men and women, gratitude from interactions predicted increases in relationship connection and satisfaction the following day, for both recipient and benefactor. Although indebtedness may maintain external signals of relationship engagement, gratitude had uniquely predictive power in relationship promotion, perhaps acting as a booster shot for the relationship.
People feel grateful when they have benefited from someone's costly, intentional, voluntary effort on their behalf. Experiencing gratitude motivates beneficiaries to repay their benefactors and to extend generosity to third parties. Expressions of gratitude also reinforce benefactors for their generosity. These social features distinguish gratitude from related emotions such as happiness and feelings of indebtedness. Evolutionary theories propose that gratitude is an adaptation for reciprocal altruism (the sequential exchange of costly benefits between nonrelatives) and, perhaps, upstream reciprocity (a pay-it-forward style distribution of an unearned benefit to a third party after one has received a benefit from another benefactor). Gratitude therefore may have played a unique role in human social evolution.
A study with 130 newlywed couples was designed to explore marital interaction processes that are predictive of divorce or marital stability, processes that further discriminate between happily and unhappily married stable couples. We explore seven types of process models: (a) anger as a dangerous emotion, (b) active listening, (c) negative affect reciprocity, (d) negative start-up by the wife, (e) de-escalation, (f) positive affect models, and (g) physiological soothing of the male. Support was not found for the models of anger as a dangerous emotion, active listening, or negative affect reciprocity. Support was found for models of the husband's rejecting his wife's influence, negative start-up by the wife, a lack of de-escalation of low intensity negative wife affect by the husband, or a lack of de-escalation of high intensity husband negative affect by the wife, and a lack of physiological soothing of the male, all predicting divorce. Support was found for a contingent positive affect model and for balance models (i.e., ratio models) of positive-to-negative affect predicting satisfaction among stable couples. Divorce and stability were predicted with 83% accuracy and satisfaction with 80% accuracy.
In this chapter, the authors present a social functional account of emotions that attempts to integrate the relevant insights of evolutionary and social constructivist theorists. The authors' account is summarized in 3 statements: (1) social living presents social animals with problems whose solutions are critical for individual survival; (2) emotions have been designed in the course of evolution to solve these problems; and (3) in humans, culture loosens the linkages between emotions and problems so that cultures find new ways of using emotions. In the first half of the chapter the authors synthesize the positions of diverse theorists in a taxonomy of problems of social living and then consider how evolution-based primordial emotions solve those problems by coordinating social interactions. In the second half of the chapter the authors discuss the specific processes according to which culture transforms primordial emotions and how culturally shaped elaborated emotions help solve the problems of social living. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The variety of interpersonal relationships in contemporary society necessitates the development of brief, reliable measures of satisfaction that are applicable to many types of close relationships. This article describes the development of such a measure. In Study I, the 7-item Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS) was administered to 125 subjects who reported themselves to be "in love." Analyses revealed a unifactorial scale structure, substantial factor loadings, and moderate intercorrelations among the items. The scale correlated significantly with measures of love, sexual attitudes, self-disclosure, commitment, and investment in a relationship. In Study II, the scale was administered to 57 couples in ongoing relationships. Analyses supported a single factor, alpha reliability of .86, and correlations with relevant relationship measures. The scale correlated .80 with a longer criterion measure, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976), and both scales were effective (with a subsample) in discriminating couples who stayed together from couples who broke up. The RAS is a brief, psychometrically sound, generic measure of relationship satisfaction.
Recent research has underscored the importance of gratitude to psychological and physical well-being (Emmons & McCullough, 2003), and has shown that gratitude can help facilitate the development of close relationships (Algoe, Haidt, & Gable, 2008). To date, however, little is known about gratitude among long-term married couples. The present investigation aims to examine the association between gratitude and marital satisfaction at both the individual and dyadic level. Furthermore, this study was designed to clarify the unique contributions of both feeling and expressing gratitude in marriage. Fifty couples (both husbands and wives) with a mean relationship length of 20.7 years participated in this study. Daily diary methodology was used to collect each individual’s self-reported ratings of felt and expressed gratitude as well as relationship satisfaction for 2 weeks. Consistent with hypotheses, results indicate that one’s felt and expressed gratitude both significantly relate to one’s own marital satisfaction. Cross-partner analyses indicate that the individual’s felt gratitude also predicts the spouse’s satisfaction, whereas surprisingly his or her expressed gratitude does not. Results are discussed in the context of relationship enhancement both at the individual and dyadic level.
This article opens by noting that positive emotions do not fit existing models of emotions. Consequently, a new model is advanced to describe the form and function of a subset of positive emotions, including joy, interest, contentment, and love. This new model posits that these positive emotions serve to broaden an individual's momentary thought-action repertoire, which in turn has the effect of building that individual's physical, intellectual, and social resources. Empirical evidence to support this broaden-and-build model of positive emotions is reviewed, and implications for emotion regulation and health promotion are discussed.
This research examined the dual function of gratitude for relationship maintenance in close relationships. In a longitudinal study among married couples, the authors tested the dyadic effects of gratitude over three time points for approximately 4 years following marriage. They found that feelings of gratitude toward a partner stem from the partner's relationship maintenance behaviors, partly because such behaviors create the perception of responsiveness to one's needs. In turn, gratitude motivates partners to engage in relationship maintenance. Hence, the present model emphasizes that gratitude between close partners (a) originates from partners' relationship maintenance behaviors and the perception of a partner's responsiveness and (b) promotes a partner's reciprocal maintenance behaviors. Thus, the authors' findings add credence to their model, in that gratitude contributes to a reciprocal process of relationship maintenance, whereby each partner's maintenance behaviors, perceptions of responsiveness, and feelings of gratitude feed back on and influence the other's behaviors, perceptions, and feelings.
This research was conducted to examine the hypothesis that expressing gratitude to a relationship partner enhances one's perception of the relationship's communal strength. In Study 1 (N = 137), a cross-sectional survey, expressing gratitude to a relationship partner was positively associated with the expresser's perception of the communal strength of the relationship. In Study 2 (N = 218), expressing gratitude predicted increases in the expresser's perceptions of the communal strength of the relationship across time. In Study 3 (N = 75), participants were randomly assigned to an experimental condition, in which they expressed gratitude to a friend, or to one of three control conditions, in which they thought grateful thoughts about a friend, thought about daily activities, or had positive interactions with a friend. At the end of the study, perceived communal strength was higher among participants in the expression-of-gratitude condition than among those in all three control conditions. We discuss the theoretical and applied implications of these findings and suggest directions for future research.
The mundane and often fleeting moments that a couple experiences in their everyday lives may contribute to the health or deterioration of a relationship by serving as a foundation to major couple events such as conflict discussions and caring days. This study examines the role of playfulness and enthusiasm in everyday life to the use of humor and affection during conflict. Using observational methods, we studied 49 newlywed couples in a 10-minute dinnertime interaction and in a 15-minute conflict discussion. The conflict discussion was coded using the Specific Affect Coding System (SPAFF; Gottman, Coan, & McCoy, 1996), and a new observational system was developed to capture dinnertime interactions in a seminatural setting. We analyzed the data using path analysis and found a stronger path model when the direction of correlation moved from daily moments to the conflict discussion. These findings provide preliminary support for the importance of daily moments in couple relationships, but this research was strictly observational and therefore correlational, so further research is necessary to determine direction of causation.
The ability of the emotion gratitude to shape costly prosocial behavior was examined in three studies employing interpersonal emotion inductions and requests for assistance. Study 1 demonstrated that gratitude increases efforts to assist a benefactor even when such efforts are costly (i.e., hedonically negative), and that this increase differs from the effects of a general positive affective state. Additionally, mediational analyses revealed that gratitude, as opposed to simple awareness of reciprocity norms, drove helping behavior. Furthering the theory that gratitude mediates prosocial behavior, Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 and demonstrated gratitude's ability to function as an incidental emotion by showing it can increase assistance provided to strangers. Study 3 revealed that this incidental effect dissipates if one is made aware of the true cause of the emotional state. Implications of these findings for the role of gratitude in building relationships are discussed.
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