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A little appreciation goes a long way: gratitude reduces objectication
Jiaxin Shi
a
, Xijing Wang
b
, Fei Teng
c
and Zhansheng Chen
a
a
Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, HK SAR, China;
b
Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, City University of
Hong Kong, HK SAR, China;
c
Department of Psychology, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
ABSTRACT
Objectication, treating others merely as things or tools while denying their personhood, results in
severe consequences. While prior research predominantly focused on the triggers of objectica-
tion, we aimed to investigate a possible intervention. We hypothesized that gratitude could reduce
objectication toward general others (i.e., people who are not the benefactors). Across three
studies (N = 1007), our hypothesis was supported. Study 1 showed that dispositional gratitude
negatively predicted trait objectication. Studies 2 and 3 further found a causal relationship.
Specically, after heightening participants’ state of gratitude, participants showed a lower level
of objectication towards others (Study 2). Using a scenario study that described a working
context, we further showed the alleviating eect of gratitude on objectication toward a group
of factory workers, targets often suering from objectication (Study 3). Our reported eect is
prevalent, such that it is observed across samples from two countries (i.e., the United States and
China).
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 12 August 2021
Accepted 7 February 2022
KEYWORDS
Objectification; gratitude;
general others; factory
workers
Objectication refers to treating others merely as things
or tools while denying their mind (Fredrickson & Roberts,
1997; Nussbaum, 1995). Studies have consistently shown
that women are often the targets of sexual objectica-
tion, such that they are perceived and treated as an
instrument toward one’s sexual pleasure and their men-
tal states are neglected (e.g., Moradi & Huang, 2008;
Roberts et al., 2018). However, objectication exists not
only in gender relations, and a growing number of stu-
dies have shown that objectication is more prevalent
than people previously thought. That is, objectication
exists in various domains, including the workplace (e.g.,
Andrighetto et al., 2017; Belmi & Schroeder, 2021), inter-
group relations (e.g., Haslam & Loughnan, 2012;
Markowitz & Slovic, 2020), medical eld (e.g., Boysen
et al., 2020; Raja et al., 2015), as well as general social
interaction occurring on a daily basis (e.g., Landau et al.,
2012; Teng, Chen, Poon, Zhang, Jiang et al., 2016; Wang
& Krumhuber, 2017). Needless to say, objectication
causes severe consequences, ranging from interpersonal
indierence, reduced empathy and helping, aggression
and bully, to even killing and genocide (e.g., Čehajić
et al., 2009; Obermann, 2011; Poon, Chen, Teng, Wong
et al., 2020a; Rai et al., 2017; Stanton, 2013). Given the
detrimental outcomes, it is important to nd interven-
tions to alleviate objectication, an area that has
received little attention from scholars previously
(Haslam & Loughnan, 2014). In the current research, we
aimed to investigate this issue by revealing gratitude, an
emotion that is experienced by people in most cultures
(McCullough et al., 2001), as a possible intervention.
Specically, we tested whether gratitude, either as
a stable trait or an induced state, could reduce objecti-
cation of general others (i.e., people who are not the
benefactors).
Objectication
Objectication refers to treating others merely as things
or tools that can aid in one’s goal achievement while
denying others’ autonomy, needs, and feelings
(Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997; Nussbaum, 1995). When
a target is objectied, this person is guratively split into
parts, with only those traits serving a perceiver’s current
goal being valued (e.g., Gruenfeld et al., 2008; Wang &
Krumhuber, 2017). In other words, it is the usefulness of
this target to perceivers that is focused on. In addition,
the essential humanity of the objectied targets is
deprived. State it dierently, when a target is objectied,
this person can be perceived as lacking mental capaci-
ties, hence being likened to mindless objects (e.g.,
Loughnan et al., 2010; Vaes et al., 2011). Crucially, studies
have consistently found that objectication causes
severe consequences. For example, objectication pre-
dicts reduced helping and empathy (e.g., Čehajić et al.,
2009; Viki et al., 2013). People tend to bully and act
CONTACT Xijing Wang xijiwang@cityu.edu.hk
THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2053877
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
aggressively toward objectied targets, including rape,
sexual harassment, and even torture (Obermann, 2011;
Poon, Chen, Teng, Wong et al., 2022; Rudman & Mescher,
2012; Viki et al., 2013). Furthermore, a target who has
been constantly objectied by others could internalize
this process and starts to perceive and treat him/herself
as an object or tool that lacks essential humanness,
a process known as self-objectication (e.g., Nussbaum,
1995). Clearly, the costs of self-objectication are sub-
stantial, and potential consequences include impaired
cognitive and physical performance, negative self-
evaluations, and health problems (e.g., Baldissarri &
Andrighetto, 2021; Heick & Goldenberg, 2009; Moradi
& Huang, 2008; Quinn et al., 2006; Zurbriggen et al.,
2011).
Previous empirical studies have found that various
factors could trigger objectication, such as the feelings
of disgust (e.g., Hodson & Costello, 2007) or uncertainty
(Landau et al., 2012), hostile and disagreeable personal
characteristics of perceivers (Locke, 2009), targets’ social
category (e.g., Harris & Fiske, 2006; Kersbergen &
Robinson, 2019; Petsko et al., 2021; Rudman & Mescher,
2012), heuristic thinking (Prati et al., 2015), perceived
threat (Viki et al., 2013), social power (e.g., Gwinn et al.,
2013), motivation for money or even the presence of
money (e.g., Teng, Chen, Poon, Zhang, Jiang et al., 2016;
Wang & Krumhuber, 2017), economic value (Wang &
Krumhuber, 2018), certain work features (Belmi &
Schroeder, 2021; Valtorta et al., 2019), and immoral acts
or indelity (e.g., Bastian et al., 2013; Rodrigues et al.,
2018).
Existing studies have predominantly focused on dis-
positional and situational triggers of objectication.
Given the detrimental social outcomes, both intra-, and
inter-personally, it is important to examine the factors
that could buer and alleviate objectication, an area
that has been largely neglected by previous scholars. In
the current research, we would like to investigate
whether gratitude could buer against objectifying gen-
eral others (i.e., not the benefactor(s)), which is elabo-
rated on in the following section.
Gratitude and its impact on objectication
Gratitude is often dened as a positive emotion, or more
broadly positive psychological response after people
receive aid that is valuable and altruistic (Wood et al.,
2008c). In other words, it often occurs when people
acknowledge that they benet from other’s help, gui-
dance, or gifts which can be costly for the benefactor(s;
Emmons et al., 2003). In addition, apart from an inter-
personal appreciation of other people’s aid (i.e., appre-
ciation of other people), scholars have also considered
gratitude as a part of a wide life orientation towards
appreciating the positive aspects of life (e.g., apprecia-
tion of what one already has, Wood et al., 2010). As one
of the core concepts examined in the eld of positive
psychology, gratitude has been found to be a predictor
of various positive outcomes. At the intrapersonal level,
gratitude is associated positively with multiple indexes
of mental and physical health, such as lower risks of
depression, anxiety, and dependence on nicotine, alco-
hol, and drug (e.g., Kendler et al., 2003), reduced level of
stress (Wood et al., 2008b), improvement in sleep quality
(Emmonse & McCullough, 2003), and better recovery
from trauma (i.e., post-trauma growth, Peterson &
Seligman, 2003). On the ip side, gratitude is linked
with eudemonic well-being (e.g., autonomy, personal
growth, and purpose in life, Wood et al., 2009) and
authentic living (Wood et al., 2008a).
At the interpersonal level, we expected that gratitude
can reduce objectication due to a couple of reasons.
First, according to McCullough et al. (2001), not only is
gratitude a response to others’ moral behavior (helping
others even when there is a cost to oneself), but grati-
tude also motivates subsequent moral behaviors – beha-
viors driven by concerns for others. As one of the self-
transcendent emotions (i.e., emotions arising out of
other-focused appraisals), gratitude has been proposed
to shift people’s attention from one’s own needs and
concerns to those of others (Stellar et al., 2017). State it
dierently, gratitude encourages other-oriented beha-
viors that are characterized by greater sensitivity and
attunement to others. In this vein, gratitude inhibits
destructive interpersonal behavior, making people pre-
fer constructive modes of dealing with conict (Baron,
1984). More interestingly, experiencing gratitude not
only makes people demonstrate prosociality toward
the person who helped them (Stellar et al., 2017) but
also makes people more likely to help others apart from
their initial benefactor (Bartlett & DeSteno, 2006; Nowak
& Roch, 2007). Meanwhile, objectication often results
from self-centeredness or self-interested behavior (i.e.,
considering how others can be used to achieve one’s
own goal, Wang et al., 2020) and it naturally leads to
indierence and even immoral behavior (Haslam &
Loughnan, 2014; Nussbaum, 1995; Rai et al., 2017;
Wang & Krumhuber, 2017). Therefore, the moral and
other-orientation functions of gratitude can potentially
act as a buer against objectication during interperso-
nal processes. Secondly, according to nd-remind-and-
bind theory (Algoe, 2012), gratitude is a ‘psychological
gel’ to increase social bonds, encouraging people to
engage in behaviors that bring them and others closer
together. In this vein, gratitude facilitates goal conta-
gion, making people adopt the goal implied by a social
2J. SHI ET AL.
other’s behavior (Jia et al., 2014). Gratitude is associated
with perceived support from peers and family members
(Froh et al., 2009a, 2009b), and predicts increased rela-
tionship commitment, quality, maintenance, and satis-
faction between the benefactors and the gift recipients
(Algoe et al., 2008; Joel et al., 2013; Kubacka et al., 2011;
Park et al., 2019). Meanwhile, when people show
a reduced intention for social connection and bonding,
considering or even acknowledging others’ personhood
becomes less relevant and thus objectication can occur
(e.g., Powers et al., 2014; Waytz & Epley, 2012). In con-
trast, forming social bonding requires people to e-
ciently attend to others’ mental states, and thus
gratitude could act as a buer against objectication.
The present research
In the current research, we aimed to investigate whether
gratitude, either as a stable trait or an induced state,
could reduce objectication. Specically, we are inter-
ested in whether feeling grateful would reduce the
objectication of general others (i.e., not the benefactor-
(s)). To this end, Study 1 tested whether dispositional
gratitude would correlate negatively with the trait objec-
tication. Studies 2 and 3 further examined a causal
relationship by manipulating participants’ state grati-
tude. In particular, in Study 2, we manipulated partici-
pants’ state gratitude by asking them to write
a gratitude letter and assessed their subsequent objecti-
cation level towards others. Study 3 was to use
a scenario study to test further whether the eect of
gratitude on reducing objectication could be applied to
specic unknown others, that is, a group of factory work-
ers often suering from objectication (Andrighetto
et al., 2017; Valtorta et al., 2019).
Sample Size Determination. We aimed for 200 par-
ticipants for Study 1 (correlational study) and 200 parti-
cipants per condition for Studies 2 and 3 (experimental
study). Sensitivity power analysis (α = .05; β = .80)
revealed that the smallest eect sizes of r = 0.2 (Study
1, N = 202), d = 0.28 (Study 2, N = 409), and d = 0.28
(Study 3, N = 396) could be detected.
Data Availability Statement. Data will be made pub-
licly available (OSF) once the manuscript is accepted for
publication. All data exclusion criteria, manipulations,
and measures in our studies were reported.
Study 1
Study 1 aimed to provide an initial test on the relation-
ship between gratitude and objectication. We pre-
dicted that the dispositional gratitude would correlate
negatively with the trait objectication, i.e., perceiving
and treating general others instrumentally and neglect-
ing their inner thoughts and feelings. Besides, several
studies have indicated the link between objectication
and status-related constructs (e.g., social power;
Gruenfeld et al., 2008; Lammers & Stapel, 2011; Yang
et al., 2015); thus, we measured participants’ subjective
social status as a control variable.
Method
Participants. We recruited 202 American participants via
Amazon Mturk (118 women, M
age
= 45.58, SD = 14.57,
79% European Americans, 9% African Americans, 8%
Asian Americans, and 4% others). Participants were com-
pensated with 0.3 dollars. The study was approved by
the Ethics Committee of the University of Hong Kong
(EA200212). Informed consent was obtained from all
participants in the study on-line.
Procedures and Measures. After providing their
informed consent, participants were presented with sev-
eral questions that rst measured their trait gratitude,
which was followed that the measure of objectication.
Finally, they provided demographic information (i.e.,
gender, age, and subjective social status). Unless noted
otherwise, all questions were responded to on a seven-
point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly
agree). Finally, participants were debriefed and thanked.
Dispositional gratitude. Participants completed the
well-established Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ-6;
McCullough et al., 2001), which consists of six items.
Example items were ‘I have so much in life to be thankful
for.’; ‘If I had to list everything that I felt grateful for, it
would be a very long list.’ We averaged the scores to
produce an overall gratitude index, with higher scores
indicating stronger levels of dispositional grati-
tude (α = .89).
Objectication. The 10-item modied version of
Gruenfeld et al. (2008)’s Objectication Scale was used
to measure participants’ tendency to perceive and treat
general others (instead of a particular person) in an instru-
mental manner. The modied scale has been used in prior
studies (e.g., Wang & Krumhuber, 2017). Example items
were ‘I would think more about what others can do for
me than what I can do for others.’; ‘I tend to contact
others only when I need something from them.’; ‘I am
interested in this person’s feelings because I want to be
close with him/her. (R)’ We averaged the scores to pro-
duce an overall objectication index, with higher scores
indicating stronger levels of objectication (α = .82).
Subjective Social Status. Participants’ subjective social
status was reported using MacArthur’s social ladder
(Adler et al., 2000), ranging from 1 = the lowest standing
to 10 = the highest standing.
THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 3
Results and discussion
As expected, participants’ dispositional grateful level
was negatively associated with objectication, r
(202) = −.33, 95% CI [−.20, −.44]. This result remained
to be signicant after controlling for age, gender,
1
and
subjective social status, B = −0.19, SE = 0.05, 95% CI
[−0.29, −0.10], p < .001. We presented the correlational
Matrix in Table 1.
Study 1 provided initial evidence that individuals who
are more likely to feel grateful show a reduced tendency
to perceive and treat others instrumentally. Given that
Study 1 was only able to provide correlational evidence,
in the subsequent study, we aimed to further examine
the causal relationship by directly manipulating partici-
pants’ state gratitude.
Study 2
In Study 2, we aimed to investigate whether gratitude
can reduce the objectication of general others. To this
end, we manipulated participants’ state gratitude by
asking them to write a gratitude letter. We predicted
that participants in the gratitude condition (vs. control
condition) would be less likely to objectify general
others. All survey items were translated from English to
Chinese using accepted translation-back-translation
techniques (Brislin, 1970).
Method
Participants. We recruited 410 Chinese participants via
Credamo, a data collection platform that is comparable
to Mechanic Turk in China. One participant was excluded
as he or she did not pass the attention check (i.e., one
item embedded in the scale, ‘Please select 4.’), leaving 409
participants (234 men, M
age
= 27.95, SD = 5.61) in the nal
analysis. Participants were randomly assigned to one of
the two conditions (gratitude versus control), resulting in
202 people in the gratitude condition and 207 in the
control condition. Participants were compensated with 2
Chinese Yuan (approximately equivalent to 0.3 US dollars).
Procedure and Measures. Participants completed the
study in Chinese. They rst gave their informed consent
and reported demographic information (i.e., gender,
age, and subjective social status). Then, we randomly
assigned participants to one of two conditions (gratitude
vs. control). Following Deichert et al. (2021), in the gra-
titude condition, participants were instructed to write
a gratitude letter to a person for whom they were grate-
ful. In contrast, in the control condition, participants
were instructed to write down what they often do each
Tuesday. In both conditions, participants were required
to provide as many details as they could (writing no less
than 50 Chinese characteristics). As a manipulation
check, participants responded to two questions: ‘I feel
grateful to others,’ and ‘I’d like to express my gratitude
to others.’ (r = 0.85, p < .001).
Finally, they completed the seven-item scale devel-
oped by Belmi and Schroeder (2021) to measure the
extent to which they would like to perceive and treat
others in an objectied manner. Example items were ‘I
would value others primarily for what they can do for
me,’ and ‘I would pay little attention to the wishes and
desires of others.’ An overall objectication score was
calculated by averaging the scores across items, with
higher scores corresponding to higher levels of instru-
mentality (α = .67).
Results and discussion
First, participants in the gratitude condition (M = 6.43,
SD = 0.81) reported a greater level of state gratitude
than those in the control condition (M = 5.22, SD = 1.36),
Welch’s t(336.61) = 10.95, p < .001, 95% CI [0.86, 1.30],
d = 1.08, suggesting that our manipulation was successful.
Central to our hypothesis, there was a signicant
eect of condition on objectication, t(407) = 2.36.
p = .019, 95% CI [0.04, 0.43], d = 0.23.
2
Specically,
participants in the gratitude condition (M = 3.33,
SD = 0.93) reported a reduced level of objectication,
perceiving and treating others, compared to those in the
control condition (M = 3.53, SD = 0.84). The results
supported our prediction that feeling grateful reduces
state objectication of general others.
Study 3
Study 3 was to test whether the eect of gratitude could
be applied to an imagined working context, an environ-
ment where objectication is most likely to occur (e.g.,
Belmi & Schroeder, 2021). Specically, prior ndings
showed that people are highly likely to objectify factory
workers (e.g., Andrighetto et al., 2017; Valtorta et al.,
2019). To this end, we rst induced gratitude in partici-
pants and then measured their objectication toward
a group of factory workers (i.e., people like the protago-
nist in the vignette).
Table 1.
Variables M (SD) 1 2 3 4
1. Age 45.58 (14.57) -
2. SSS 5.18 (1.76) .13 -
3. DG 5.54 (1.34) .34
a*
.23
a
-
4. Objectification 3.17 (0.99) −.38
a*
.19
a
−.33
a*
-
Note SSS = Subjective social status, DG = Dispositional gratitude
a
p < .01, ***p < .001
4J. SHI ET AL.
Method
Participants. We recruited 400 American participants
from Mechanic Turk. Four participants were excluded
from analysis since they did not pass the attention
check (i.e., one item embedded in the scale, ‘Please
select 4.’), leaving 396 participants (192 men, M
age
= 40.89, SD = 12.01, 78% European Americans, 8%
African Americans, 10% Asian Americans, and 4% others)
in the nal analysis. Participants were randomly assigned
to one of the two conditions (gratitude versus control),
resulting in 197 participants in the gratitude condition
and 199 participants in the control condition.
Participants were compensated with 0.3 US dollars in
the end.
Procedure and measures. Participants rst read a brief
introduction of a person named Marco. In particular, it
was stated: ‘Marco is thirty, lives in your city and has two
brothers. In the evening, he usually goes out with
friends. He works eight hours a day as a factory worker.
His work is repetitive and monotonous. He performs the
same action about ten times in ve minutes.’
Next, we asked the participants to complete a writing
task. In the gratitude condition, adapted from Deichert
et al. (2021), participants were told that Marco has
helped them to complete a task so that they would
need to write a thank-you letter to Marco to express
their gratitude. In the control condition, participants
were instructed to write a personal introduction of
Marco.
After the writing task, as a control measure, parti-
cipants were required to report their aect on PANAS
(e.g., interested, upset, and proud, Watson et al.,
1988). As a manipulation check, participants also indi-
cated how grateful they felt. Notably, these responses
were made on ve-point Likert scales (1 = not at all,
5 = very much).
Next, following Andrighetto et al. (2017), partici-
pants indicated the degree to which they perceive
factory workers (i.e., people like Marco) were object-
like, including being instrumental and non-humanlike.
Instrumentality-related words include instruments,
tools, and things; humanness-related words include
people, individuals, and guys (scores were reversely
coded). The examples were ‘I perceive factory workers
like Marco as instruments,’ and ‘I perceive factory
workers like Marco as individuals.’ Participants’
responses were made on seven-point Likert Scales
(1 = not at all, 7 = extremely so). We averaged the
scores of items with higher scores indicating stronger
levels of objectication of the target (α = .89). Finally,
participants provided their demographic information
before they were thanked and debriefed.
Results and discussion
Our manipulation was successful, such that participants
who wrote a thank-you letter (M = 4.52; SD = 0.76) felt
more grateful than those who wrote a general introduc-
tion (M = 3.29; SD = 1.30), Welch’s t(320.19) = 11.54.
p < .001, 95% CI [0.93, 1.38], d = 1.16. In addition, those
in the gratitude condition (M = 1.16; SD = 0.42) felt
signicantly less negative than those in the control con-
dition (M = 1.35; SD = 0.66), Welch’s t(332.83) = −3.43.
p < .001, 95% CI [- 0.54, – 0.14], d = −0.34, although the
eect on the positive aect was not signicant, Welch’s t
(394) = 0.97, p = .335, 95% CI [−0.10, 0.29], d = 0.10.
Central to our hypothesis, participants
3
in the grati-
tude condition reported a signicantly lower level of
objectication (M = 1.75; SD = 0.93) of factory workers
than those in the control condition (M = 2.31; SD = 1.34),
Welch’s t(353.97) = – 4.90, p < .001, 95% CI [- 0.69, – 0.29],
d = – 0.49. The result remained signicant after control-
ling for negative aect, F(1, 393) = 13.64, p < . 001,
η
2
= 0.03. Therefore, these ndings supported our
hypothesis that gratitude reduces objectication in
a work setting.
General discussion
Objectication refers to treating others merely as things
or tools while denying their mind (Fredrickson & Roberts,
1997; Nussbaum, 1995). Needless to say, objectication
causes severe consequences, ranging from interpersonal
indierence, reduced empathy and helping, aggression
and bully, to even killing and genocide (e.g., Čehajić
et al., 2009; Obermann, 2011; Rai et al., 2017; Stanton,
2013; Viki et al., 2013). Given the detrimental outcomes,
it is important to nd interventions to alleviate objecti-
cation, an area that has received little attention from
scholars previously (Haslam & Loughnan, 2014). In the
current research, we tested whether gratitude, either as
a stable trait or an induced state, could reduce objecti-
cation of general others (i.e., people who are not the
benefactors).
Across three studies, our hypothesis was supported.
Study 1 showed that dispositional gratitude negatively
predicted trait objectication. Studies 2 and 3 further
demonstrated a causal relationship between gratitude
and objectication. Specically, after temporarily heigh-
tening participants’ state of gratitude, participants
showed a lower level of objectication towards others.
Conceptually replicating the ndings of Study 2, Study 3
further showed the alleviating eect of gratitude on
objectication in a working context, an environment
where objectication is most likely to occur (e.g., Belmi
& Schroeder, 2021). It is worth pointing out that our
THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 5
revealed eect is prevalent, such that it is observed
across samples from countries (i.e., the United States
and China) that dier in ethnicities, cultures, and social
ideologies.
Our study rst contributes to the research eld of
objectication. Previous work has primarily focused on
identifying antecedents of objectication, such as work
features (Andrighetto et al., 2017; Belmi & Schroeder,
2021), domination and power (Bareket & Shnabel, 2020;
Gruenfeld et al., 2008), competition (Wang et al., 2021),
misconduct (e.g., Bastian et al., 2013; Rodrigues et al.,
2018), and economic contexts (Teng, Chen, Poon, Zhang,
Jiang et al., 2016a; Wang & Krumhuber, 2017). However,
few studies focused on how to reduce objectication,
a psychological process that can lead to various detri-
mental consequences as explained earlier (Haslam &
Loughnan, 2014). Importantly, our ndings shed light
on the intervention, providing a useful way to reduce
objectication. It is worth pointing out that gratitude as
a method works not only at the dispositional level but is
also eective at a state level (e.g., writing a thankful
letter, Studies 2 and 3). Although previous studies sug-
gest that people could intuitively objectify others (e.g.,
Tyler et al., 2017), our research shows that people can
also attenuate objectication by resorting to gratitude.
In addition, our research also has practical implications
for organizations where objectication is more likely to
occur. Organizations could try to create a less objectify-
ing atmosphere by encouraging people to express gra-
titude towards others.
In addition, the current study extends the positive
interpersonal eects of gratitude. Consistent with pre-
vious work, gratitude not only promotes positive inter-
action (e.g., prosocial behavior; Grant & Gino, 2010) but
also diminishes negative interaction (e.g., aggression;
DeWall et al., 2012). It is worth pointing out that the
eect of gratitude is not only limited to the benefactors
to whom people should show appreciation. Our research
suggests that the positive eect of gratitude can even
extend to people who were not involved in the initial
interaction (i.e., general others), a nding that is in line
with a phenomenon such as upstream reciprocity (e.g.,
Nowak & Roch, 2007). Importantly, while the feature of
interaction pattern of both rounds is identical for
upstream reciprocity (i.e., A helps B, and B helps C), our
results further suggest that the feature of interaction
pattern can be rather dierent (i.e., A helps B,
B become less likely to objectify Cs).
Despite the contributions mentioned above, our
study has several limitations worth noting. First, con-
sistent with prior research (e.g., Deichert et al., 2021;
Lyubomirsky et al., 2011; Watkins et al., 2003) the writ-
ing paradigm (i.e., writing a letter to express one’s
gratitude towards someone) has been found eective
to induce a grateful state. Future studies could try other
manipulation methods to heighten people’s gratitude
(e.g., the state-of-the-art technologies of virtual reality;
Collange & Guegan, 2020). Second, objectication
towards factory workers was examined in an imagined
working context in the nal study. Future studies could
try to increase the ecological validity of this result by
recruiting and testing real employees. Third, following
prior studies, measures of objectication were self-
report in nature (e.g., Andrighetto et al., 2017; Belmi &
Schroeder, 2021; Gruenfeld et al., 2008); such types of
assessment, however, could be subject to the inuence
of social desirability. To avoid this issue, scholars could
try to use and develop other less direct measurements
or indexes of objectication, such as neural and phy-
siological responses (e.g., Harris & Fiske, 2006). Finally,
gratitude could signicantly aect people’s mood,
which, in turn, might inuence objectication. Bearing
this in mind, we have controlled for people’s mood in
Study 3 and showed that the eect of gratitude on
buering objectication goes beyond mood. This is
also consistent with previous research that suggests
gratitude inductions work above and beyond the
eects of positive mood (e.g., DeWall et al., 2012;
Sasaki et al., 2020). Still, our studies cannot rule out
the possibility that the impact of gratitude on objecti-
cation was the result of a more general eect of
gratitude on one’s view of people. Future studies
could investigate whether gratitude reduces objecti-
cation as a result of more generally reducing anti-social
tendencies, or the impact of gratitude is more specic
to objectication.
In conclusion, across three studies, we showed that
gratitude, either as a dispositional trait or a temporary
state, could eectively attenuate objectication towards
general others. Our ndings, therefore, shed light on the
power of cultivating a sense of gratitude in reducing
objectication.
Notes
1. A preliminary test showed that male participants
(M = 3.42, SD = 0.96) reported a greater level of objecti-
cation than female participants (M = 2.99, SD = 0.98), t
(200) = 3.17, p < .001, d = 0.45, 95% CI [0.16, 0.74].
However, the interaction between gender and gratitude
on objectication was not signicant (p = .850).
2. Male participants (M = 3.62, SD = 0.95) reported a greater
level of objectication than female participants
(M = 3.18, SD = 0.75), Welch’s t(405.84) = 5.24, p < .001,
d = 0.51, 95% CI [0.30, 0.71]. However, the interaction
between condition (gratitude vs. control) and gender on
objectication was not signicant (p = .434)
6J. SHI ET AL.
3. There was a trend that male participants (M = 2.14,
SD = 1.24) reported a higher level of objectication than
female participants (M = 1.95, SD = 1.13), although the
eect was not signicant (p = .423). No signicant interac-
tion eects between gender and other variables (i.e., con-
dition and aects) on objectication was found (ps > 181).
Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
The data described in this article are openly available in the
Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/b2d6g/.
Open scholarship
This article has earned the Center for Open Science badge
for Open Data. The data are openly accessible at https://doi.
org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2036799.
ORCID
Xijing Wang http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3923-6064
Zhansheng Chen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0873-3391
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