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Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 1 November 2019 | Volume 10 | Article 2480
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
published: 08 November 2019
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02480
Edited by:
Monika Fleischhauer,
Medical School Berlin,
Germany
Reviewed by:
Jesus Alfonso Daep Datu,
The Education University of Hong
Kong, Hong Kong
Philip Charles Watkins,
Eastern Washington University,
UnitedStates
*Correspondence:
Wenceslao Unanue
wunanue@uc.cl
Specialty section:
This article was submitted to
Personality and Social Psychology,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Psychology
Received: 20 July 2019
Accepted: 21 October 2019
Published: 08 November 2019
Citation:
Unanue W, Gomez Mella ME,
Cortez DA, Bravo D, Araya-Véliz C,
Unanue J and Van Den Broeck A
(2019) The Reciprocal Relationship
Between Gratitude and Life
Satisfaction: Evidence From Two
Longitudinal Field Studies.
Front. Psychol. 10:2480.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02480
The Reciprocal Relationship
Between Gratitude and Life
Satisfaction: Evidence From Two
Longitudinal Field Studies
WenceslaoUnanue1*, MarcosEstebanGomezMella1, DiegoAlejandroCortez2,
DiegoBravo1, ClaudioAraya-Véliz2, JesúsUnanue3 and AnjaVanDenBroeck 4,5
1 Escuela de Negocios, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile, 2 Escuela de Psicología, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez,
Santiago, Chile, 3 Facultad de Educación y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile, 4 KU Leuven,
Leuven, Belgium, 5 Optentia Research Programme, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa
Gratitude and life satisfaction are associated with several indicators of a good life (e.g.,
health, pro-social behavior, and relationships). However, how gratitude and life satisfaction
relate to each other over time has remained unknown until now. Although a substantial body
of research has tested the link from gratitude to life satisfaction, the reverse association
remains unexplored. In addition, recent cross-cultural research has questioned the link
between gratitude and subjective well-being in non-Western countries, suggesting that the
benets of gratitude may only prevail in Western societies. However, previous cross-cultural
studies have only compared western (e.g., American) and eastern (e.g., Asian) cultures, but
this simple contrast does not adequately capture the diversity in the world. To guide further
theory and practice, wetherefore extended previous cross-sectional and experimental
studies, by testing the bi-directional longitudinal link between gratitude and life satisfaction
in a Latin American context, aiming to establish temporal precedence. Weassessed two
adult samples from Chile, using three-wave cross-lagged panel designs with 1 month (Study
1, N=725) and 3 months (Study 2, N=1,841) between waves. Both studies show, for the
rst time, that gratitude and life satisfaction mutually predict each other over time. The
reciprocal relationships suggest the existence of a virtuous circle of human well-being: higher
levels of gratitude increase life satisfaction, which in turn increases gratitude, leading to a
positive spiral. Key theoretical and practical implications for the dynamics of human ourishing
and eld of positive psychology are discussed.
Keywords: gratitude, life satisfaction, subjective well-being, positive psychology, longitudinal analysis, prospective
design, adults, Chile
anks to life, which has given me so much
It gave me two stars, which when Iopen them,
Perfectly distinguish black from white
And in the tall sky its starry backdrop,
And within the multitudes the one that Ilove.
anks to life
Violeta Parra, Chilean poet
Unanue et al. Gratitude and Life Satisfaction
Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 2 November 2019 | Volume 10 | Article 2480
Life satisfaction and gratitude are important for living a good
life. e benets of both constructs have been extensively
documented. ey include, for instance, better mental and physical
health, more pro-social behavior, high-quality relationships, and
more meaningful lives (Wood et al., 2010; Diener and Tay,
2017). Life satisfaction (Diener, 1984) is a key predictor of well-
being (Helliwell et al., 2013) and a fundamental construct for
advising on public policies (Diener et al., 2009): the OECD,
e.g., has used life satisfaction to assess the progress of the nations
through the Better Life Index (OECD, n.d.). Gratitude, a tendency
to appreciate the good and positive, is an equally essential
nutrient for people ourishing (Wood et al., 2010).
Research has extensively shown a positive link between
gratitude and life satisfaction (Froh et al., 2009; Wood et al.,
2010; Alkozei etal., 2018). However, how both constructs relate
to each other over time has remained unknown until now.
Previous studies have only explored the link from gratitude
to life satisfaction, whereas the reverse association has not
been tested yet. Drawing on Watkins (2004) seminal article,
wetheorized a reciprocal relationship between both constructs
and thus a “circle of virtue”.
As gratitude and life satisfaction likely unfold over time,
we need to do more to disentangle the ongoing, naturally
occurring, reciprocal relations between pre-existing (rather than
momentarily primed) gratitude and life satisfaction. Appropriate
and well-suited longitudinal designs—still scarce in the eld—
are needed in order to complement the existing evidence and
test whether both constructs are reciprocally related (Wood
et al., 2008). is paper presents two such studies, among
Chilean adults, that could contribute in this area.
Studying the directionality between gratitude and life
satisfaction is important, both from a theoretical and practical
point of view. From a theoretical perspective, our studies make
four main contributions. First, longitudinal eld research is
necessary for clarifying the direction of the link between gratitude
and life satisfaction, in order to identify whether there is a
temporal precedence between the constructs or whether the
link is only due to a shared variance with other variables.
Second, clarifying the prospective direction of the link between
gratitude and life satisfaction allows their conceptualizations
and implications to be enriched. If our reciprocal hypothesis
is supported, gratitude would be not only an antecedent of life
satisfaction but also a consequence of it and vice versa. ese
ndings would show the complexity, multi-directionality, and
interdependence between both constructs. ird, the potential
inuence of gratitude on subjective well-being (SWB; Diener,
1984) has not yet been fully conrmed in the non-Western
world. Indeed, recent cross-cultural research has suggested that
benets of gratitude may only reach Western societies (Boehm
et al., 2011; Layous et al., 2013; Shin et al., in press). However,
previous studies have only compared Asian and American
cultures. erefore, we think it is important to extend gratitude
research by including additional non-Western countries like
Chile, which allows us to go beyond the traditional Western-
Eastern dichotomy (Vignoles et al., 2016). Fourth, while the
great majority of previous studies have explored students and
young populations (Davis etal., 2016), weassessed working adults.
From a practical point of view, if the reciprocal relationship
is supported, it would open the possibility for a virtuous or
a vicious circle in health and well-being interventions. On the
one hand, higher gratitude would lead to higher life satisfaction,
which in turn would increase gratitude, leading to a positive
spiral in human ourishing. On the other hand, the lack of
either gratitude or life satisfaction may lead to a negative
process in human wellness. Policy makers and health practitioners
could benet from these ndings. By teaching people the
importance of gratitude and life satisfaction—and how to foster
each of them, practitioners from dierent settings (clinical,
educational, organizational, etc.) may not only help people to
protect their mental health but also show them how to move
toward a virtuous circle of ourishing and well-being.
Accordingly, weconducted two longitudinal studies to examine
the prospective link from gratitude to life satisfaction as well
as the reverse link from life satisfaction to gratitude. Before
presenting the results, we rst describe gratitude and life
satisfaction and argue for their reciprocal relationship.
GRATITUDE AND LIFE SATISFACTION
Gratitude has been conceptualized from dierent perspectives
(McCullough etal., 2002). e most comprehensive approach—
and the one we used in this paper–denes gratitude as a life
orientation (Wood et al., 2010). From this perspective, people
may feel grateful because they are alive, because they are able
to walk in a beautiful park, or just from the appreciations of
their abilities (Wood et al., 2010). Research has found that
higher gratitude is associated with a better life, indexed as
higher positive aect, self-esteem, positive emotions, optimism,
autonomy, environmental mastery, relationships, personal growth,
meaning in life, and self-acceptance. Gratitude has also been
associated with lower ill-being in terms of negative aect,
depression, anxiety, phobia, bulimia, addictions, negative
emotions, dysfunctions, anger, and hostility. For a review and
a meta-analysis, see Davis etal. (2016) and Wood etal. (2010).
Subjective well-being (SWB; Diener, 1984) refers to “people’s
sense of wellness in their lives, in both thoughts and feelings”
(Diener and Tay, 2017, p. 90). Life satisfaction is the cognitive
component of SWB (Diener etal., 1985) and reects the global
evaluation that people make about their satisfaction with their
own lives in several domains such as work, marriage, and
health (Diener etal., 2017). Life satisfaction is associated with
a host of positive outcomes, indexed in terms of better mental
and physical health, healthier weight and eating behaviors,
more exercise, longer life expectancy, higher levels of career
satisfaction, lower turnover intentions, and higher organizational
commitment. It has also been associated with lower ill-being,
indexed as lower addictions and unhealthy habits (e.g., tobacco,
drugs, and alcohol use), lower mortality rates, and lower levels
of anxiety and depression. e benets of life satisfaction also
reach the whole of society. Higher life satisfaction predicts
altruism (e.g., donating, helping, and volunteering) as well as
lower homicide, suicide, and illness rates. For a review, see
Diener et al. (2017) and Diener and Tay (2017).
Unanue et al. Gratitude and Life Satisfaction
Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 3 November 2019 | Volume 10 | Article 2480
Research Studying the Link Between
Gratitude and Life Satisfaction: The Need
for Longitudinal Studies
Cross-sectional studies have given strong support for the
relationships between gratitude and life satisfaction. However,
cross-sectional designs are not able to disentangle either the
origins or the direction of this relationship. Experimental
evidence has found support for the hypothesized causal link
from gratitude to life satisfaction. Priming or experimentally
inducing gratitude leads participants to feel better about their
lives as a whole and to experience more life satisfaction (Emmons
and McCullough, 2003; Rash et al., 2011). Writing letters of
gratitude over a 3-week period also increases participants’
happiness and life satisfaction and decreases depressive symptoms
(Toepfer et al., 2012). Experimental studies are the strongest
evidence for causality between gratitude and life satisfaction.
However, previous research has focused only on the eect of
gratitude on life satisfaction, yet no experimental study to
date has tested a reverse link. Longitudinal research may help
to ll this gap.
Although longitudinal studies have examined several aspects
of the prospective relations of gratitude, such as social support,
low stress, or post-traumatic growth (Wood etal., 2008; Zhou
and Wu, 2016), according to our knowledge, only one eld
study has explored the link between gratitude and life satisfaction
over time, using an appropriate longitudinal design. Specically,
Jans-Beken etal. (2018) found a prospective positive association
from gratitude to SWB, using a four-wave design among Dutch
adults. However, only a global measure of SWB was included
and life satisfaction was not isolated. Importantly, the reverse
link from life satisfaction to gratitude was neither hypothesized
nor tested. Longitudinal research using questionnaires would
help to extend previous cross-sectional and experimental evidence
and shed light on the hypothesized prospective link between
gratitude and life satisfaction. Conducting this kind of study
is the main aim of our paper.
THE RECIPROCAL RELATION BETWEEN
GRATITUDE AND LIFE SATISFACTION
We contend that gratitude and life satisfaction may bereciprocally
related. e idea was rst developed by Watkins (2004), who
proposed several psychological mechanisms to understand the
so-called “circle of virtue.” Below, we will summarize some of
his main ideas.
From Gratitude to Life Satisfaction
Gratitude is a life orientation towards noticing and appreciating
the positive in life: it “serves as an indicator of aspects of life
for which to be appreciative” (Wood et al., 2010, p. 3). is
is a dispositional tendency. us, people high in trait gratitude
experience all the gratitude facets frequently and strongly
(McCullough etal., 2002), which may lead to positive cognitive
evaluations of our existence (e.g., higher life satisfaction
assessments). Watkins (2004) oered several suggestions about
which psychological mechanisms are involved in the prospective
link from gratitude to life satisfaction.
First, when people perceive a benet/favor as a “gi” (i.e.,
“a favor that has been given to one for one’s benet,” Watkins,
2004, p. 175), they are more likely to enjoy the benet. is
perception may be a form of cognitive amplication, which
in turn fosters SWB. People higher in trait gratitude are more
likely to perceive benets as gis, which could lead gratitude
to increase life satisfaction through this cognitive amplication
process. In other words, “gratitude should increase our enjoyment
of a blessing” (Watkins, 2004, p. 176). is theorization is
consistent with the broaden-and-build theory (BBT; Fredrickson,
2013). BBT suggests that gratitude, as a life orientation, may
consistently increase our positive emotions, which in turn
broadens our array of thoughts, increasing life satisfaction:
when people feel grateful for a situation—especially when the
situation is seen as a gi—they are more likely to feel positive
emotions, and this in turn protects them from a variety of
mental disorders and increases their life satisfaction and happiness
(Lyubomirsky et al., 2005). is process then produces an
upward spiral in human wellness (Fredrickson, 2013).
Second, gratitude may protect us against the law of habituation.
Research has shown that people tend to adapt to their current
levels of circumstances, and “over time, we tend to get used to
our current level of satisfaction” (Watkins, 2004, p. 176).
Unfortunately, adaptation to satisfaction may prevent people from
being happy from ongoing circumstances. Certain activities may
help to avoid being a slave to the law of habituation. Indeed,
“by constantly being aware of how fortunate one’s condition is”
(e.g., through gratitude), people may protect themselves from
the problem of habituation (Frijda, 1988, p.354). In other words,
the “practice of gratitude should accomplish, consistently reminding
one of how good life really is” (Watkins, 2004, p. 177).
ird, gratitude may direct attention away from upward
social comparisons. Social comparisons lead to feelings of
deprivation. Indeed, upward social comparisons and envy is
associated with lower positive aect and higher unpleasant
feelings. However, as shown by McCullough et al. (2002), the
practice of gratitude (e.g., focusing on our blessings), “directs
attention away from making comparisons with others who
have more” (Watkins, 2004, p.177). In other words, changing
our attention from the things wedo not have to an appreciation
of thing we do have may protect humans from the dangers
of social comparisons (Watkins, 2004).
Fourth, the practice of gratitude is an eective coping
mechanism. Wood etal. (2007) showed that gratitude relates to
three broad categories of coping (Wood et al., 2010): People
who are more grateful tend to use more social support, to actively
solve their problems, and to avoid denying the existence of the
problems. ese coping strategies may help individuals to better
face and solve various life problems, thus increasing their life
satisfaction. To support this, research has shown that grateful
people are better able to appreciate dicult situations, promoting
better coping strategies with stressful circumstances, which is
associated with long-term SWB (Watkins, 2004). In other words,
“gratitude may give one a helpful perspective on life that assists
in mood repair following a stressful event” (p. 179).
Unanue et al. Gratitude and Life Satisfaction
Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 4 November 2019 | Volume 10 | Article 2480
Fih, gratitude allows the accessibility and recollection of
pleasant life events. Seidlitz and Diener (1993) state that a
key aspect of happiness is the accessibility of positive memories.
Following this argument, Watkins (2004) argues that gratitude
“should enhance the retrievability of positive experiences by
increasing elaboration of positive information” (p.181). Further,
the increased availability of positive life events should lead to
more positive judgments of people’s lives and thus to higher
life satisfaction.
Sixth, gratitude may increase life satisfaction by enhancing
a person’s social benets. Indeed, whereas research has shown
that gratitude is signicantly associated with better social
relationships (Wood etal., 2010), social relationships are strongly
associated with higher life satisfaction (Unanue et al., 2014).
Further, gratitude may increase life satisfaction through the
mediational role played by social contacts and the satisfaction
of the need for relatedness (Watkins, 2004). Seven, gratitude
might increase life satisfaction through the prevention of
depressive episodes. Indeed, research has shown that depression
has a strong inverse association with gratitude. Because of
that, it has been argued that “the lack of gratitude may be a
vulnerability factor for depression” (p. 183) and thus of lower
life satisfaction and SWB.
From Life Satisfaction to Gratitude
Previous arguments provide a strong argument for the link
from gratitude to life satisfaction. However, it is also possible
to theorize that life satisfaction may also predict gratitude
over time.
Gratitude—as a life orientation—represents satisfaction in
several aspects of life such as social support, work, and family
(Wood etal., 2008). us, when satisfaction with life increases,
a causal eect is expected such that people’s gratitude increases
accordingly. In other words, people may feel a strong sense
of gratitude when experiencing high levels of life satisfaction
(e.g., their lives are fantastic). In addition, according to Watkins
(2004), research suggests that people who are satised with
their lives develop three types of perceptions when they are
the recipient of the gi, which may increase gratitude. First,
people who are satised with their lives, are more likely to
value a gi, and are therefore more likely to experience gratitude.
Second, when the receiver appreciates the goodness of the
giver, grateful feelings increase. ird, the receiver is more
likely to feel grateful if heor she thinks that the gi is gratuitous
and went beyond the receiver’s social expectations. Happier
people are more likely to have the previous three perceptions,
which in turn lead them to feel more grateful. Research strongly
supports these claims. For example, people experiencing greater
life satisfaction or positive aect tend to evaluate things more
positively, which increases the probability of a grateful response.
In other words, people are more likely to recognize the goodness
of benets if they believe life is good, thus promoting
grateful responses.
Overall, whether gratitude causes life satisfaction, and/or
life satisfaction causes gratitude, is still an open question.
Following Watkins (2004) seminal article, wepropose that the
answer to both questions is yes. In other words, we expect
that gratitude and life satisfaction operate in a “cycle of virtue”
(p.185). Based on this theorizing, wethus expect a bi-directional
temporal association between gratitude and life satisfaction,
and hypothesize:
(H1) Gratitude prospectively predicts future life satisfaction.
(H2) Life satisfaction prospectively predicts future gratitude.
THE ROLE OF CULTURE: EXTENDING
RESEARCH IN NON-WESTERN
COUNTRIES
Despite the increasing evidence in favor of a positive link
between gratitude and SWB in the Western world, cross-cultural
research has questioned the potential inuence of gratitude in
non-Western countries (Boehm etal., 2011; Layous etal., 2013;
Shin et al., in press). For example, while some studies in
China (Sun and Kong, 2013; Kong et al., 2015, 2017) and
Philippines (Datu, 2014; Datu and Mateo, 2015; Valdez et al.,
2017) have shown a positive link between gratitude and SWB,
recent research in South Korea, Taiwan, and India found
non-signicant results.
Boehm et al. (2011) explored the eect of a gratitude
intervention on life satisfaction among Anglo-American and
Asian American participants. Individuals from both cultures
reported higher life satisfaction aer the intervention
(compared with the control group), but Asian American
participants benetted signicantly less. Similarly, Layous
et al. (2013) studied the eect of a gratitude intervention
on SWB (life satisfaction and positive emotions) among North
American and South Korean participants. Results showed
that SWB increased in both cultures (compared with the
control group), but the increase was signicantly lower for
the South Korean participants. Shin etal. (in press) randomly
assigned participants from India, Taiwan, and the US to a
gratitude experimental condition or to a neutral condition
activity. It was found that only the US participants who
expressed gratitude reported a greater state of gratitude relative
to the controls, which led the authors to suggest that gratitude
interventions do not “elicit felt gratitude in collectivist cultures,”
providing “new insights into why expressing gratitude may
bea less eective happiness-promoting activity in collectivist
cultures” (p. 2).
Previous ndings have led scholars to argue that maybe
“Eastern, collectivist cultures do not benet as much from
practicing gratitude compared to Western, individualist
cultures” (Shin etal., in press, p.2). However, existing studies
exploring the role of culture in the link between gratitude
and SWB and have only compared Western (e.g., US) and
Eastern (e.g., Asian) cultures, which is in line with the
standard tradition in cross-cultural psychology, which “has
relied excessively on contrasts between North American and
East Asian samples” (Vignoles etal., 2016, p.967). Nonetheless,
a simple contrast between Eastern and Western countries
does not adequately capture the diversity in dierent regions
of the world (Vignoles et al., 2016).
Unanue et al. Gratitude and Life Satisfaction
Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 5 November 2019 | Volume 10 | Article 2480
Markus and Kitayama (1991) proposed that cultures could
be classied under two opposite dimensions: independent
and interdependent. e authors stated that the independent
view of the self is found in Western countries and the
interdependent view of the self is found in non-Western
societies. However, according to Vignoles etal. (2016), “this
perspective has arguably contributed to the prevalence of a
rather black-and-white view of cultural diversity” (p. 969),
leading academics to legitimize a misleading tendency to
dichotomize cultures in terms of binary oppositions between
“Western” (e.g., US) versus “non-Western” (e.g., Asia) cultures.
Further, this black-and-white view between US and Asia
has marginalized other non-Western regions of the world
such us Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East,
and Eastern Europe. Research on gratitude has made the
same mistake. To ll this void, we extend cross-cultural
research on gratitude beyond the East-West dichotomy by
studying Chile.
Cultural diversity may be assessed through national
socioeconomic development, religious heritage, and individualism
(Vignoles etal., 2016). Based on these criteria, Latin America,
and in particular Chile, is dierent from American and Asian
countries studied thus far, and studying this particular context
thus adds important value to the diversity of the cross-cultural
research on gratitude. First, according the World Bank, Latin
America is considered an upper-middle-income region, whereas
North America is a high-income economy and most Asian
nations are low-income ones (e World Bank, n.d.). Second,
according to the World Economic Forum, Chile and Latin
America have a Catholic heritage, whereas most of the population
in the US is atheist/agnostic, and a large majority of people
from Asia are either Buddhist, Hindu, or atheist/agnostic
(Jacobs, 2019). ird, and nally, Chile is an interesting country
in terms of the dimension of individualism-collectivism. Research
has assumed that people from Western countries have an
individualistic view of the self, while people from non-Western
countries have a more collectivistic view. Following this tradition,
Chile has been traditionally considered a collectivistic culture
(Hofstede, 1983; Arnulf and Silje, 2009). However, during the
last few decades, Chile has gone through a deep social and
economic transition with enormous cultural and societal changes.
Indeed, recent studies have shown that Chile has moved fast
toward a more individualistic culture (Arnulf and Silje, 2009;
Benavides and Hur, 2019).
Individualism is a key issue, and researchers have tried to
explain why the benets of gratitude seem only to have reached
Western societies (Boehm et al., 2011; Shin et al., in press).
Research has shown that “individualist cultures base their life
satisfaction more on intrapersonal than interpersonal factors
whereas those from collectivist cultures do the reverse” (Boehm
et al., 2011, p. 2). In other words, goals and norms in
individualistic cultures are more supportive of self-expression,
self-improvement, and the pursuit of happiness rather than
goals and norms in collectivistic cultures (Boehm etal., 2011).
If individualism is key, wemay expect a positive link between
gratitude and SWB in Chile, which is an unexplored non-Western
cultural context.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE
PRESENT RESEARCH
We followed Watkins (2004), in terms that “e test of all
happiness is gratitude” (Watkins, 2004, p.167). Further, hestates
that the relation between gratitude and happiness, and more
specically, life satisfaction, should not be taken lightly and
deserves to be extensively studied. Our paper aims to tap into
this issue and study the link between gratitude and life satisfaction
from a longitudinal perspective.
e current manuscript contributes to the scientic literature
in the following ways. First, there is a lack of well-suited
longitudinal eld research on the association between gratitude
and life satisfaction (Alkozei et al., 2018). Indeed, according
to our knowledge, to date, no study has explored the reciprocal
link between these constructs using questionnaire research. In
response, we conducted two eld studies, using cross-lagged
panel models (CLPMs) which help in testing prospective (i.e.,
temporal) directions between gratitude and life satisfaction over
time (Selig and Little, 2012). Although prospective designs do
not test causality directly, prospective signicance between
variables is a key requirement for causality. CLPM allows “looking
at autoregressive eects (linking a variable at earlier time points
to itself at later time points) and cross-lagged eects (linking
two dierent variables across time)” (Joshanloo, 2019, p. 183).
Second, weexpand on the scarce amount of research conducted
in the non-Western world (mainly in Asia), by assessing a country
from a Latin-American context. By including Chile, weextended
previous research beyond the traditional Western-Eastern paradox
(Vignoles et al., 2016). ird, the great majority of previous
studies on the link between gratitude and life satisfaction have
focused on students and young populations going through similar
life transitions (Davis et al., 2016). We aim to further our
understanding of the relationship between gratitude and life
satisfaction, by exploring two large samples of Chilean working
adults, living at dierent stages of their lifespan. Finally, our
research also has practical implications. By complementing previous
experimental and cross-sectional studies, we expect to test the
potential of both gratitude and life satisfaction for interventions
aiming to protect people’s mental health, improve the quality of
human life, and provide guidance on public policies.
STUDY 1
Method
Participants and Procedure
Study 1 was conducted in accordance with the American
Psychological Association guidelines and followed University
Ethics and Research Governance procedures to avoid coercion
(e.g., participation was voluntary). Participants were informed
about the goal of the study in overall terms. ey were also
asked about their intention to participate in future research,
as the poll would be part of a longitudinal study. Informed
consent was obtained from all participants.
Following recent leading research, which advocates the
advantages of using online designs (Porter et al., 2019),
Unanue et al. Gratitude and Life Satisfaction
Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 6 November 2019 | Volume 10 | Article 2480
we collected full panel data in a three-wave cross-lagged
longitudinal design with 1 month between waves, among a
wide sample of Chilean working adults. A university in Santiago
provided the email addresses of alumni1. Participants were sent
an email with an explanation of the research and a web link
to the survey. In each wave, participants were advised that
the survey remained opened for only 1 week, and they received
a polite reminder every working day. All participants who
decided not to participate in or nish the study were given
the option to either unsubscribe from the mailing list or leave
the survey at their convenience, without any penalty. For the
rest of the participants, all questions were compulsory, so
we did not have missing data within each wave.
Seven hundred and twenty-ve participants (52.1% male)
between the ages of 21 and 72 years (mean age = 38.30;
SD=10.01) completed the T1 measures. At T2, 275 participants
(52.7% male) between the ages of 21 and 72 years (mean
age = 39.62; SD= 10.23) completed the T2 measures (37.93%
of Wave 1). At T3, 252 participants (55.2% male) between the
ages of 21 and 72 years (mean age=40.35; SD=10.15) completed
the T3 measures (34.76% of Wave 1). In total, 161 respondents
(54.7% male) between the ages of 21 and 72 (mean age= 40.65;
SD = 10.50) answered the three waves (22.21% of Wave 1).
ose who completed only T1 (N=564) did not dier signicantly
in gender {[χ2(1)]=0.53, p=0.468}, gratitude [t(275.67)=−1.86,
p = 0.064], or life satisfaction [t(723) = −1.02, p= 0.307] from
those who participated in the three waves (N=161). Participants
only diered in age [t(723) = −3.40, p < 0.01]. erefore, our
analysis suggests that younger participants were especially likely
to drop out of the study. Little’s MCAR test (Little, 1988) showed
that missing data were completely at random {[χ2(141)]=115.24,
p= 0.945}. Following the recommendations of Newman (2014),
weemployed a full information maximum likelihood estimation
(FIML2), which allowed us to include all 725 participants in
our structural analyses, irrespective of the pattern of missing
data (Muthén et al., 1987).
We conducted a sensitivity power analysis using G*Power 3.1
(Faul etal., 2009) to estimate the statistical power for our cross-
lagged structural equation modeling (SEM) model. Adopting the
conventional criterion of 0.80 power, considering 124 parameters,
and including only participants who completed the three waves,
which is a conservative criterion, our study was suciently
powered to detect a predictor with a population eect size of
f2 = 0.051, representing a small eect (Cohen, 1992). Our
sample size was thus considered sucient. e distributions
were adequate for all constructs (George and Mallery, 2010).
1
Study 1 and Study 2 are part of a large project on happiness and well-being,
funded by the Chilean Government and KU Leuven. We collected several
other measures regarding life and work, but they are not relevant to the
present research.
2
We use full information maximum likelihood (FIML), because this procedure
outperforms traditional techniques regarding parameter estimation bias, model
t and parameter estimation eciency (Peters and Enders, 2002). In addition,
FIML shows unbiased and more ecient estimates compared with other methods
of imputation such as listwise deletion, pairwise deletion and similar response
patterns imputation (Enders and Bandalos, 2001). Moreover, FIML generate a
lower proportion of convergence failures (Enders and Bandalos, 2001).
Skew valueswere appropriate for gratitude (T1: −0.79; T2: −0.94;
and T3: −0.97) and life satisfaction (T1: −0.81; T2: −0.82;
and T3: −0.92). Kurtosis values were also appropriate for gratitude
(T1: 0.23; T2: 1.52; and T3: 0.74) and life satisfaction (T1: 0.58;
T2: 0.94; and T3: 0.82).
Measures
We translated highly validated scales for gratitude and life
satisfaction into Spanish, and equivalence of meaning with the
original version was checked using standard back-translation
procedures (Brislin, 1970)3.
Gratitude
We used the gratitude questionnaire developed by McCullough
et al. (2002), which includes six items (e.g., “If I had to list
everything that I felt grateful for, it would be a very long
list”). Respondents rated the items from 1 (completely disagree)
to 7 (completely agree). Cronbach’s alphas were good at T1
(0.76), T2 (0.74), and T3 (0.78). We built a latent variable
using all the scale items.
Life Satisfaction
We used the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et al., 1985),
which includes ve items (e.g., “In most ways my life is close
to my ideal”). Respondents rated the items from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Cronbach’s alphas were good
at T1 (0.89), T2 (0.88), and T3 (0.88). Webuilt a latent variable
using all the scale items.
Demographics
We used gender (male=1) and age (in years) as control variables.
Results
Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations for all Study 1 variables
are shown in Tab le 1. Weused MPlus 7.1 (Muthén and Muthén,
2012) to estimate the relations among our constructs. We used
SEM to test our hypotheses. We used latent variables to reduce
the biasing eects of measurement error (Finkel, 1995). According
to standard statistical criteria (Hu and Bentler, 1999; Kline, 2005),
we evaluated the model t by using the root mean square error
of approximation (RMSEA) and comparative t index (CFI).
Values of RMSEA <0.06 (or< 0.08) and CFI > 0.95 (or > 0.90)
were considered to be evidence of a good (or acceptable) t.
Measurement Model and Invariance Test
First, we tested a six-factor measurement model where
we constrained all the gratitude factor loadings as well as all
the life satisfaction factor loadings to be equal across the three
waves. As suggested by Jöreskog (1979), we incorporated auto-
correlated error terms for the observed indicators, and weallowed
3
Nowadays, there are validated Spanish versions for both gratitude (Langer
et al., 2016) and life satisfaction (Bagherzadeh et al., 2018) scales. However,
they were not available at the time when we started the data collection.
Nonetheless, we have checked them against our back translation, and we do
not nd any particular dierence between the items.
Unanue et al. Gratitude and Life Satisfaction
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all latent variables to co-vary freely. e model t was acceptable:
χ2(465) = 1020.632, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.937, RMSEA = 0.041.
en, we tested a baseline model where no constraints were
imposed. e model t was also acceptable: χ2(447) = 993.733,
p < 0.001; CFI = 0.938; RMSEA = 0.041. Finally, we compared
both models. According to Cheung and Rensvold (2002), the
assumption of invariance is tenable if the reduction in CFI, when
constraints are imposed, is less than 0.01. Here, the change in
CFI met this criterion (ΔCFI = 0.001). Despite Cheung and
Rensvold (2002) is a widely accepted criterion, recent literature
(e.g., Koomen et al., 2012) has highlighted the importance of
relying on multiple criteria for testing invariance. e assumption
of invariance is also supported when the dierence in RMSEA
is lower than 0.01 (Chen, 2007) and the constrained model has
an expected cross-validation index (ECVI) smaller than the
unconstrained model (Browne and Du Toit, 1992; Ruiz et al.,
2017). In our case, the change in RMSEA (ΔRMSEA = 0.00)
and the change in ECVI (ΔECVI = −0.05) met both criteria.
erefore, it can beconcluded that the pattern of factor loadings
was invariant across waves for both gratitude and life satisfaction.
Hence, we maintained these constraints in all structural models
reported below.
Conrmatory Factor Analysis Analyses
e denition of gratitude as a life orientation opens the
possibility that both gratitude and life satisfaction belong to
one single factor. us, we performed a conrmatory factor
analysis (CFA) in order to examine the factorial validity of
the measures in each assessment time. At T1, results showed
that the collapsed model [11 indicators; χ2(44) = 881.45,
p<0.001] is signicantly worse than a model where gratitude
(six indicators) and life satisfaction (ve indicators) were
modeled as two dierent latent variables [χ2(43) = 271.26,
p < 0.001], Δχ2(1)= 610.19, p< 0.001. At T2, the collapsed
model [χ2(44) = 356.74, < 0.001] is signicantly worse than
the two-factor model [χ2(43) = 111.78, p < 0.001],
Δχ2(1) = 244.96, p < 0.001. At T3, the collapsed model
[χ2(44) = 399.07, p < 0.001] is signicantly worse than the
two-factor model [χ2(43)=185.38, p<0.001], Δχ2(1)=213.70,
p<0.001. Our results show that gratitude and life satisfaction
are two dierent constructs, replicating the ndings of
McCullough et al. (2002).
Longitudinal Analysis
We tested a structural cross-lagged reciprocal model to determine
the relationships between gratitude and life satisfaction over time.
Following Ribeiro et al. (2011), we controlled this by gender
and age. We allowed the two latent variables (life satisfaction
and gratitude) to co-vary within each time point, and wemodeled
lagged paths from each measure to the other two measures at
the successive time points. us, all constructs were represented
as potential antecedents and as potential consequences of the
other constructs, while controlling for stability eects. e model
t was acceptable, χ2(514) = 1158.80, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.93,
RMSEA= 0.04. Weconstrained all factor loading (measurement
invariance) and paths (to maximizestatistical power) to beequal
between waves, following Unanue et al. (2016). e model t
remained acceptable: χ2(536) = 1192.08, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.93,
RMSEA = 0.04, and this more parsimonious model showed no
signicant loss of t compared to a model where all factor
loadings and structural paths were estimated freely: Δχ2(4)=5.50,
p= 0.239. Values of R2 ranged from 0.68 to 0.74 (all p<0.001).
Supporting H1, we found that gratitude at T1 was a positive
prospective predictor of life satisfaction at T2: β = 0.10 (95%
CI: 0.03, 0.18), p < 0.01. Supporting H2, life satisfaction at T1
was a positive prospective predictor of gratitude at T2: β= 0.11
(95% CI 0.03, 0.19), p<0.01. Wealso found that life satisfaction
at T1 was a positive prospective predictor of life satisfaction at
T2 [β = 0.76 (95% CI 0.69, 0.83), p < 0.001] and gratitude at
T1 was a positive prospective predictor of gratitude at T2 [β=0.78
(95% CI 0.71, 0.86), p < 0.001]. Gender was positively related
to gratitude: β= 0.17 (95% CI 0.10, 0.25), p < 0.001. No other
TABLE 1 | Descriptives and inter-correlations for all Study 1 and Study 2 variables.
Study 1 M D 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Gender 1.48 0.50
2. Age 38.3 10.01 −0.20**
3. Life satisfaction T1 4.57 0.97 0.01 0.03
4. Life satisfaction T2 4.61 0.89 0.04 0.02 0.73**
5. Life satisfaction T3 4.65 0.90 0.07 −0.01 0.72** 0.77**
6. Gratitude T1 5.92 0.91 0.18** 0.03 0.50** 0.40** 0.46**
7. Gratitude T2 5.95 0.87 0.19** 0.05 0.44** 0.51** 0.47** 0.72**
8. Gratitude T3 5.95 0.94 0.18** −0.01 0.49** 0.52** 0.60** 0.71** 0.69**
Study 2 M D 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Gender 1.45 0.50
2. Age 36.94 8.59 −0.11**
3. Life satisfaction T1 4.42 1.00 0.16** 0.06*
4. Life satisfaction T2 4.51 0.98 0.16** 0.12** 0.63**
5. Life satisfaction T3 4.56 0.93 0.12** 0.03 0.59** 0.70**
6. Gratitude T1 5.91 0.94 0.05*0.04 0.53** 0.46** 0.41**
7. Gratitude T2 5.92 0.91 0.05 0.04 0.45** 0.55** 0.45** 0.71**
8. Gratitude T3 5.95 0.87 0.03 0.01 0.38** 0.49** 0.54** 0.67** 0.74**
T1, Time 1; T2, Time 2; T3, Time 3.*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.
Unanue et al. Gratitude and Life Satisfaction
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signicant paths were found. Details may be found in Figure 14.
Finally, weconstrained the path from gratitude to life satisfaction
as well as the path from life satisfaction to gratitude to beequals.
e model t remained acceptable: χ2(537) =1192.17, p <0.001,
CFI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.04, and it did not show signicant
dierences in comparison with the previous model, Δχ2(1)=0.093,
p = 0.760. us, the strength of the link from gratitude to life
satisfaction is not signicantly dierent from the strength of the
link from life satisfaction to gratitude.
STUDY 2
Voelkle et al. (2012) show that over shorter periods of time,
dierent lags (e.g., 1 versus 2 months) may yield dierent
conclusions about the strength of the eect sizes. us, in
order to establish robustness, Study 2 tested the same hypotheses
as Study 1 but used a larger sample size as well as a longer
period of time between waves (3 months).
Method
Participants and Procedure
Study 2 was conducted in accordance with the same ethical
standard and followed the same procedure as Study 1. A three-
wave cross-lagged longitudinal design with 3 months between
each wave was employed.
In total, 1,841 Chilean working adults (54.9% male) between
the ages of 21 and 71 years (mean age = 36.94; SD = 8.59)
completed T1 measures. At T2, 979 participants (56.0% male)
4
In Study 1 and Study 2, we reported standardized paths only between T1
and T2. Paths between T2 and T3 may be found in their respective gures,
but they are similar in signicance and magnitude.
between the ages of 23 and 75 years (mean age=38.57; SD=9.56)
answered T2 measures (53.2% of Wave 1). At T3, 700 participants
(54.0% male) between the ages of 24 and 72 (mean age=38.96;
SD = 9.77) completed T3 measures (38.0% of Wave 1). Finally,
421 respondents (54.4% male) between the ages of 24 to 71
(mean age=38.70; SD=9.63) answered the three waves (22.9%
of Wave 1). ose who completed only T1 (N = 1,420) did not
dier signicantly in gender {[χ2(2)] = 0.64, p = 0.730} from
those who participated in the three waves (N = 421). However,
participants diered in age [t(609.84)=−4.47, p<0.001], gratitude
[t(762.96) = −2.14, p = 0.033] and life satisfaction
[t(740.29)= −2.41, p=0.016]. Our analysis suggests that younger
participants as well as respondents with lower gratitude and life
satisfaction were especially likely to drop the survey. Little’s MCAR
test (Little, 1988) showed that missing data were not completely
at random {[χ2(98)] = 150.512, p < 0.001}. us, following the
recommendations of Newman (2014), we used FIML to deal
with missing data.
e sensitivity power test indicated that our study was
suciently powered to detect a predictor with a population
eect size of f2 = 0.018, representing a small eect (Cohen,
1992). e distributions were adequate for all constructs
(George and Mallery, 2010). Skew values were appropriate
for gratitude (T1: −1.01; T2: −0.87; and T3: −0.85) and life
satisfaction (T1: −0.67; T2: −0.71; and T3: −0.53). Kurtosis
values were also appropriate for gratitude (T1: 1.21; T2: 0.46;
and T3: 0.64) and life satisfaction (T1: 0.21; T2: 0.45; and
T3: 0.07).
Measures
We used the same measures as in Study 1. Cronbach’s alphas
were good for gratitude at T1 (0.78), T2 (0.77), and T3 (0.77)
as well as for life satisfaction at T1 (0.88), T2 (0.89), and T3(0.88).
FIGURE 1 | Study 1. Structural longitudinal model for the associations between gratitude and life satisfaction. Coefcients shown are standardized paths. Error
terms and loadings are not shown to enhance visual clarity. Loading are all between 0.40 and 0.9 (p < 0.001). T1: Time 1; T2: Time 2; and T3: Time 3. Gi, Gratitude
item i. Li, Life satisfaction item i. Solid lines = signicant paths. Dashed line = not signicant paths. Condence intervals are reported in square brackets for
signicant paths. ***p < 0.001; **p < 0.01.
Unanue et al. Gratitude and Life Satisfaction
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Results
We followed the same procedure as in Study 1 for testing our
hypotheses. Descriptive statistics and inter-correlations for all
Study 2 variables are shown in Table 1 . Again, we used SEM
and latent variables to reduce the biasing eects of measurement
error (Finkel, 1995).
Measurement Model and Invariance Test
We followed the same procedure as in Study 1. First, wetested
a six-factor measurement model where weconstrained all the
gratitude factor loadings as well as all the life satisfaction
factor loadings to be equal across the three waves.
We incorporated auto-correlated error terms for the observed
indicators (Jöreskog, 1979) and allowed all latent variables to
co-vary freely. e model t was acceptable, χ2(465)=1376.928,
p < 0.001, CFI = 0.954, RMSEA = 0.033. en, we tested a
baseline model where no constraints were imposed. e model
t was also acceptable: χ2(447)=1335.096, p<0.001; CFI=0.955;
RMSEA = 0.033. Finally, we compared both models. Because
the change in CFI was less than 0.01 (ΔCFI = 0.001), the
dierence in RMSEA was lower than 0.01(ΔRMSEA = 0.00),
and the constrained model had an ECVI smaller than the
unconstrained model (ΔECVI = −0.02); therefore, it can
beconcluded that the patterns of factor loadings were invariant
across waves for both gratitude and life satisfaction (Browne
and Du Toit, 1992; Cheung and Rensvold, 2002; Chen, 2007;
Ruiz et al., 2017). Hence, we maintained these constraints in
all structural models reported below.
Conrmatory Factor Analysis
CFA showed, again, that gratitude and life satisfaction are
dierent constructs. At T1, the collapsed model [11 indicators:
χ2(44) = 1967.79, p < 0.001] was signicantly worse than a
model where gratitude (six indicators) and life satisfaction (ve
indicators) were modeled as two dierent latent variables
[χ2(43) = 506.27, p < 0.001], Δχ2(1) =1461.52, p < 0.001. At
T2, the collapsed model [χ2(44) = 1151.50, p < 0.001] was
signicantly worse than the two-factor model [χ2(43) =303.02,
p < 0.001], Δχ2(1) = 848.48, p < 0.001. At T3, the collapsed
model [χ2(44) = 628.13, p < 0.001] was signicantly worse
than the two factor model [χ2(43) =194.77, p < 0.001],
Δχ2(1) = 433.36, p < 0.001.
Longitudinal Analysis
We replicated the same cross-lagged model we tested in
Study 1. e model t for our nal model (loadings and
paths constrained to be equal across waves) was acceptable,
χ2(536) =1717.43, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.04 and
showed no signicant loss of t compared to a model where
all structural paths were estimated freely, Δχ2(4)=6.06, p=0.194.
e values of R2 ranged from 0.54 to 0.67 (all p < 0.001).
e signicant paths from this model are shown in Figure 2.
Supporting H1, wefound that gratitude at T1 was a signicant
and positive prospective predictor of life satisfaction at T2,
β = 0.11 (95% CI 0.05, 0.16), p < 0.001. Supporting H2, life
satisfaction at T1 was a signicant and positive prospective
predictor of gratitude at T2, β = 0.15 (95% CI 0.09, 0.21),
p < 0.001. We also found that life satisfaction at T1 was a
positive prospective predictor of life satisfaction at T2 [β= 0.70
(95% CI 0.65, 0.75), p < 0.001] and gratitude at T1 was a
positive prospective predictor of gratitude at T2 [β = 0.63
(95% CI 0.57, 0.69), p < 0.001]. Gender was signicantly and
positively related to gratitude, β = 0.16 (95% CI 0.00, 0.21),
p < 0.001 and to life satisfaction, β = 0.05 (95% CI 0.01,
0.10), p<0.05, while age was signicantly and positively related
to gratitude, β = 0.06 (95% CI 0.01, 0.11), p < 0.01 and to
life satisfaction, β = 0.06 (95% CI 0.01, 0.11), p < 0.01. No
other signicant path was found. Finally, we constrained the
paths from gratitude to life satisfaction, and the paths from
life satisfaction to gratitude to beequal. e model t remained
acceptable, χ2(537) = 1717.92, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.94,
RMSEA = 0.04, and it did not show signicant dierences in
comparison with the previous model, Δχ2(1)=0.093, p=0.760.
us, the strength of the link from gratitude to life satisfaction
is not signicantly dierent than that from life satisfaction
to gratitude.
DISCUSSION
Research has extensively shown that gratitude and life satisfaction
are associated with several indicators of a better life (Wood
et al., 2010; Diener and Tay, 2017), but surprisingly, it has
remained unknown until now how both constructs relate to
each other over time. In addition, despite strong evidence for
the gratitude—SWB link in the Western world, cross-cultural
research has questioned the results in non-Western countries
(Boehm et al., 2011; Layous et al., 2013; Shin et al., in press).
In addition, most research into the mentioned link has focused
mainly on students and young populations. Based on previous
research gaps, we conducted two longitudinal studies, aiming
to complement previous experimental and cross-sectional evidence
in order to clarify the origin of the link between gratitude
and life satisfaction. We tested a reciprocal model, among two
large samples of Chilean working adults, using three-wave cross-
lagged panel designs with 1 month (Study 1) and 3 months
(Study 2) between waves. In both studies, we found that a
person with higher than average gratitude at T1 is likely to
show higher than average life satisfaction at T2, controlling
the stability eect of life satisfaction at T1. In addition, a person
with higher than average life satisfaction at T1 is likely to
show higher than average gratitude at T2, controlling the stability
eect of gratitude at T1. Our data also show that the eect
of gratitude on life satisfaction is as strong as—and equally
important for the dynamic of human wellness—as the eect
of life satisfaction on gratitude. We found these results even
when controlling age and gender.
Our ndings complement previous experimental and cross-
sectional studies, thus providing critical evidence about the benets
of both gratitude and life satisfaction for improving people’s
quality of life. Gratitude may help to increase life satisfaction,
which is a key element of people’s wellness and functioning.
However, the power of life satisfaction also goes beyond what
Unanue et al. Gratitude and Life Satisfaction
Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 10 November 2019 | Volume 10 | Article 2480
is already known (Diener et al., 2017; Diener and Tay, 2017) as
life satisfaction also predicts gratitude. is is the most novel
aspect of our paper, as by linking life satisfaction to gratitude
over time, our results open the possibility for enriching life
satisfaction conceptualization. Besides being understood as cognitive
evaluation, life satisfaction would bean experience in itself, full
of thankfulness, emotions, and positive ways of living our lives.
Previous literature has highlighted the role of culture in
the link between gratitude and SWB (Boehm etal., 2011; Shin
et al., in press). However, previous cross-cultural research has
only contrasted Western American and Eastern Asian populations,
which is not enough to reect the variety of cultures around
the world (Vignoles etal., 2016). Further, weassessed a sample
of Chileans, from a Latin American country. Chile presents
important dierences with Western and Eastern countries
previously studied (e.g., economic development, religious heritage,
and individualism), adding more diversity to gratitude research
across the world. Our results support the bi-directional link
between gratitude and life satisfaction in this unexplored
non-Western, Latin American context.
Interesting ndings emerge when inspecting the longitudinal
eects of age and gender in our outcome variables. Both studies
showed, consistently, that gratitude is signicantly higher for
women than men, whereas Study 2 also found that women
are more likely to experience life satisfaction. Moreover, Study
2 also showed that older participants report higher levels of
both life satisfaction and gratitude. Further research may explore
the psychological process behind these results, which may in
turn help policy makers and clinicians to design better
interventions to improve people’s lives at particular stages.
Our ndings yield practical implications, e.g., for organizations,
as our participants are all working adults. Companies may
start a reciprocal process of happiness and ourishing by
creating the necessary conditions for fostering either employees’
gratitude or life satisfaction. Previous research has found a
signicant association between job satisfaction and life satisfaction
(Unanue etal., 2017). us, by improving working conditions,
leaders may increase worker satisfaction, and thus, life satisfaction.
is process may naturally lead employees to feel more grateful,
thus reinforcing life satisfaction and allowing an upward spiral
in human wellness.
Despite the positive loop, it is important to notice that a
lower level of gratitude may also lead to a negative spiral in
human wellness through the reinforcing eect of lower life
satisfaction. For example, if companies aect people’s lives and/
or job satisfaction negatively, they may start a negative process
in those individuals’ well-being through a lack of gratitude.
Indeed, the virtuous circle between gratitude and life satisfaction
could become a vicious one. is highlights how important
it is to develop strategies for improving gratitude and life
satisfaction over time. Otherwise, people’s mental health and
well-being could be at risk.
In sum, our results show that gratitude and life satisfaction
are both prospectively and positively related to each other
over time. Higher levels of gratitude may lead to an increase
in life satisfaction, which in turn may increase gratitude, thus
enabling a spiral of human ourishing. To the best of our
knowledge, this is the rst research that has shown these
patterns of results, thereby allowing a better interpretation of
previous cross-sectional and experimental ndings.
Limitations
Some limitations in this research should be acknowledged.
First, our measures were all self-reported and shared method
variance could potentially have inated the correlations between
gratitude and life satisfaction within each wave. However,
FIGURE 2 | Study 2. Structural longitudinal model for the association between gratitude and life satisfaction. Coefcients shown are standardized paths. Error
terms and loadings are not shown to enhance visual clarity. Loading are all between 0.40 and 0.9 (p < 0.001) T1: Time 1, T2: Time 2, and T3: Time 3. Gi, Gratitude
item i; Li, Life satisfaction item i. Solid lines = signicant paths. The condence intervals are reported in square brackets for signicant paths. ***p < 0.001; **p < 0.01;
*p < 0.05.
Unanue et al. Gratitude and Life Satisfaction
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self-reports of one’s experience are the most valid way of
measuring gratitude and life satisfaction, since these are facets
of people’s subjective experience. In addition, we took several
a priori precautions to mitigate a common method bias. For
example, weadapted highly validated measures for our constructs.
Moreover, shared method variance within each measure was
reduced within the stability paths that we controlled while
testing the lagged paths that formed the main focus of our
research. Finally, we protected respondent anonymity and
informed participants that there were no right or wrong answers
(Podsako etal., 2003; Conway and Lance, 2010). Nonetheless,
despite these previous precautions, future studies might
supplement the current ndings with alternative methods, such
as implicit measures of gratitude and life satisfaction, as well
as proximal mechanisms such as biomarkers, as suggested by
Davis et al. (2016).
Second, by providing evidence of temporal precedence,
the prospective bi-directional longitudinal link between
gratitude and life satisfaction reported in our research
substantially strengthens the hypothesized causal relationships
between both constructs. However, these results do not provide
conclusive evidence for causality. A third variable may
beinvolved. us, future research should investigate the role
of possible mediators (such as the ones weexplicitly theorized
across the paper) in the link we studied. ird, we found
small lagged paths between gratitude and life satisfaction.
However, eect sizes in CLPMs are typically small because
most of the variance is captured by the stability paths. Fourth,
although we sampled adults from a non-Western country,
the participants were all from Chile. us, weshould becareful
about generalizing these results to dierent non-Western
cultures and populations.
Fih, it would be important to attempt to reduce attrition
rates in future research. However, as the review by Wood
etal. (2010) has shown, attrition in online studies of gratitude
is “commonly very high” (p. 8). Indeed, “the law of attrition”
is almost a fact in all data collection without human contact,
and “high dropout rates may be a natural and typical feature”
(Eysenbach, 2005, p. 1). Sixth, CLPMs are not exempt from
criticism. For example, one potential limitation is that they
do not explore how variables are evolving and changing over
time, which may be useful for understanding individual
dierences. However, this issue is beyond our aim here. Wewere
only interested in prospective directions. Further research should
also explore our hypothesis using, for example, latent growth
models aiming to test within-person changes.
Seven, we recognized the possibility that our studies may
suer from uncareful responses, which may aect the quality
of the data collected (Chandler et al., 2014). However, the
main constructs used in the present paper showed adequate
reliabilities and were invariant across time, allowing us to think
that most people provided true and careful answers. Nonetheless,
future research should follow Porter et al. (2019, p. 19)
suggestions, in terms of “create unique attention checks” and
“use conventional attention checks to identify and potentially
remove responses provided by careless”. Eighth, the quantitative
nature of this study could limit the potential understanding
and the complexity of the phenomena we explored. Further,
qualitative methodology may help to complement our ndings,
helping to understand the underlying process between gratitude
and life satisfaction in more detail.
Nine, weadvocated for several underlying mechanisms that
may explain the virtuous circle between gratitude and life
satisfaction. First, e.g., drawing on BBT (Fredrickson, 2013),
gratitude may enhance a positive aectivity (Watkins et al.,
2003) that would foster congruent positive cognitions which,
in turn, would improve positive evaluations that people make
about their lives (Watkins, 2004), thereby enabling a positive
spiral in human functioning. Second, the positive spiral between
gratitude and life satisfaction might also be explained due to
the emotional benets that individuals experience when
something is interpreted as a gi (McCullough et al., 2001;
Watkins, 2004). Indeed, positive cognitions and positive aects
linked to life satisfaction and gratitude respectively, could
gradually generate a cognitive bias that would impact on the
availability of people’s memories, thoughts, feelings, and
perceptions of life events. In line with this, Watkins (2004)
suggests that gratitude could promote a mood-congruent memory
bias that could enhance both the encoding and retrievability
of positive experiences, increasing the elaboration of positive
information. Lambert etal. (2012) support previous theorization,
proposing that individuals high in trait gratitude are more
likely to reframe negative or neutral events in a positive way
which, in turn, lead them to experience fewer depressive
symptoms. ird, Watkins (2004) argues that happy people
are “more likely to acknowledge the good intentions of a giver”
(p.184). In other words, people with high SWB would bemore
prompt to attribute positive intentions from others and, in
doing so, to experience gratitude. us, the more someone
values the gi, or the more people recognize the benevolence
acts of a giver, the more likely he/she will feel grateful (Tesser
et al., 1968; Watkins, 2004). We suggest that these positive
attributions could also have a positive eect on the quality of
social contacts, which could be strengthened due to the
consequent gratitude of the beneciary and his or her motivation
to act in a reciprocal way towards the giver (i.e., helping him
or her). is is consistent with previous ndings that identify
social support as a mediator between gratitude and life satisfaction
(Wood et al., 2010; Kong et al., 2015) as well as between
SWB and the quality of the individual’s friendship (Diener
et al., 1999). Fourth, dierent aspects of gratitude may act as
a catalyst from one to another. Further, cognitive aspects of
gratitude such as mood-congruent elaboration and cognition
(Watkins, 2004) could befollowed by noticing and appreciating
the positive in the world, which in turn, may bevalidated by
social comparison and experiences (e.g., perception, attribution,
and experiences) reinforcing positive mood-congruent cognitions.
However, despite previous mechanisms possibly playing a key
role in the reciprocal link between gratitude and life satisfaction,
we did not test them. erefore, future research may expand
on these underlying psychological processes.
en, and nally, we acknowledge that in this paper weonly
investigated the link between gratitude and the “bright” side of
human experiences (i.e., life satisfaction). However, westrongly
Unanue et al. Gratitude and Life Satisfaction
Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 12 November 2019 | Volume 10 | Article 2480
encourage future research to explore the link between gratitude
and the “dark” side of people’s mental health (i.e., depression).
Based on our ndings, we would expect a negative reciprocal
link between gratitude and depression. However, to the best of
our knowledge, only Wood et al. (2008) have examined this
reciprocal relationship. In two studies, the authors found a
signicant and negative link from gratitude to depression, but
the reverse hypothesis was not supported. Methodological issues
may help to understand these unexpected results. Wethink that
there is a chance that the small sample sizes in both studies
(156 and 87 participants, respectively) were not powerful enough
for the sophisticated and complex SEM longitudinal models
Wood et al. (2008) tested. is issue may play a role in the
non-signicant ndings from depression to gratitude. In addition,
only young participants going through the same life transition
were assessed, which limits the variability in the data collected
as well as the generalization of the results. We encourage the
replication of ndings of Wood etal. (2008). Patients diagnosed
with clinical depression tend to focus more on negative than
on positive thoughts and have fewer resources to appreciate the
positive and good in life. erefore, we expect that by using
larger sample sizes, adult populations, and ideally, dierent
cultures, yield results which show that higher (lower) levels of
depression may lead to lower (higher) levels of trait gratitude.
CONCLUSION
Violeta Parra wrote one of the most famous Chilean songs
almost 50 years ago: anks to life. Her gratitude used to
come from her life satisfaction, nut research has neglected the
possibility of this link. Could this bepossible? To date, research
has only claimed a link from gratitude to life satisfaction, not
the reverse. Notably, wefound that gratitude and life satisfaction
are mutually linked to each other in a “circle of virtue”. Violeta
was right!
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
e datasets generated for this study are available on request
to the corresponding author.
ETHICS STATEMENT
e studies involving human participants were reviewed and
approved by Comité de Ética universidad Adolfo Ibañez. e
patients/participants provided their written informed consent
to participate in this study.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual
contribution to the work. e original idea, as well as the
data collection was developed by WU. All authors wrote several
sections of the out initial analysis dra, carried and interpreted
results. All authors wrote, read, and revised the nal paper
and approved it for publication collaboratively.
FUNDING
WU acknowledges a grant received by the Chilean Fondo
Nacional de Desarrollo Cientíco y Tecnológico (Fondecyt 1338
Iniciacion) Project No. 11160389. AV acknowledges and thanks
KU Leuven (VKH-C9278-StG/14/035) for the grant support.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WU thanks the Chilean Comisión Nacional de Investigación
Cientíca y Tecnológica.
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Conflict of Interest: e authors declare that the research was conducted in
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