Past research demonstrates that gratitude affects individuals' self-regulation of behavior primarily through engendering a prosocial tendency. Based on theories proposing that gratitude plays an unique role in fostering communal relationship (e.g., Algoe, 2012), we propose that gratitude can have an incidental effect in facilitating goal contagion: automatically inferring and adopting the goal implied by a social other's behavior. This hypothesis is supported in 3 studies. In Study 1, after being exposed to the behaviors of a social target that implied either a cooperative or a competitive goal, individuals adopted the respective goal and behaved accordingly in a Resource Dilemma Task. This occurred, however, only when they were feeling gratitude and not when they were feeling joy or a neutral mood. In Study 2, after being exposed to a social target's behavior that implied the goal to make money, people feeling gratitude, as compared to those feeling pride or a neutral mood, strove for a future opportunity to earn money. Study 3 further demonstrated that individuals' goal striving behavior was mediated by a heightened level of goal activation. Finally, it was found that gratitude facilitated goal contagion only when the social target was a member of participants' own social group. Through this mechanism, gratitude, thus, seems to bind one's self-regulation with those of social others. Theoretical and practical implications of this new perspective are discussed.

Recent theorists argue that gratitude, besides encouraging social exchange, serves an important function of relationship building. However, there is a lack of research exploring the specific behaviors through which gratitude promotes relationship building. Given that behavioral mimicry serves important affiliative needs, we explored whether gratitude promotes behavioral mimicry. We found that participants who received intentional help later mimicked the behavioral mannerisms of their benefactor. This mimicry tendency was not extended to a nonbenefactor. In contrast, participants who ended up with the same positive outcome, but believed that it was attributable to chance, did not exhibit a reliable level of mimicry. Our results suggest that nonconscious behavioral mimicry might be a subtle but important first step through which gratitude promotes communal relationships.

BACKGROUND Background: The burgeoning mental health issues among emerging adults (ages 19 to 25) worldwide has fueled concerns about their widespread experiences of anxiety and depression. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, emerging studies are being directed towards the development and deployment of digital peer emotional disclosure and support for the psychological well-being of emerging adults. However, much remains to be explored regarding implementation and clinical effectiveness, how best to conduct digital peer support intervention for emerging adults’ psychological well-being, and the associated mechanism of change. OBJECTIVE Objective: This protocol delineates a randomized controlled trial for evaluating the implementation and clinical effectiveness of Acceset, a digital peer support intervention for emerging adult mental well-being with two components. First, the digital peer support training equips befrienders (i.e., peers who provide support) in harnessing four active ingredients—Mattering, selfhood, compassion, and mindfulness—to provide effective peer support for seekers (peers who seek support). Second, the Acceset platform incorporates digital markers of psychological well-being, hinges on peer emotional disclosure process and entails community engagement. METHODS Methods: 100 participants (aged 19 to 25) from the National University of Singapore (NUS) will be recruited and randomly allocated into two arms. Arm 1 (n = 50) seekers will engage with the Acceset platform for a period of 3 weeks, together with befrienders (n = 30) and moderators (n = 30). Arm 2 (n = 50) a control group will be placed on a waitlist for Acceset intervention. Both seekers and befrienders will be monitored using a questionnaire battery at 4 time points: baseline (before the intervention), 3 weeks (the end of the intervention), 6 weeks and 9 weeks (to measure carry over effects). The implementation outcomes on the two components of the intervention will be adoption and fidelity evaluation of the digital peer support training curriculum and the feasibility and acceptability of the Acceset platform. The clinical outcomes will include Mattering, self-hood, compassion, mindfulness, perceived social support and psychological well-being scores. RESULTS Results: This protocol has received approval by the Institutional Ethics Review Board of NUS in October 2021. Recruitment will commence in January 2022. We expect data collection and analyses to be completed in June 2022. The aim is to publish the preliminary results in December 2022. The size effect will be estimated using the Cohen d index with a significance level of .05 (95% reliability) and a conventional 80% power statistic. CONCLUSIONS Conclusions: This protocol considers a novel digital peer support intervention—Acceset—that incorporates active ingredients and digital markers of emerging adult mental well-being. Through the validation of Acceset intervention, this study defines the parameters and conditions for digital peer support intervention for emerging adults. CLINICALTRIAL Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05083676

It has been suggested that social withdrawal (NEET/Hikikomori behaviour) occurs as a result of an individual's difficulty to adapt to social norms and pressures within given cultures (marginalisation), and is present in collectivistic cultures with high social pressures and expectations. Since most of the NEET/Hikikomori studies have been conducted in Japan, we examine its applicability in Singapore with the NEET/Hikikomori Risk scale. We collected data from university students, and were able to confirm its convergent validity. To better understand its social and psychological context, we conducted an exploratory analysis to find associations with perceived deficits in social relationships, self-esteem and competence, as well as personality, anxiety, depression, and cultural self-construal. Consistent with previous findings in Japan, the evidence supports the risks of NEET/Hikikomori tendencies in Singapore as concurrent with cultural marginalisation, perceived social rejection and low views of self.

The present research examined the effects of an activation of God on prosociality in the presence or absence of a belief in God. In 3 studies, participants were primed with either the word GOD or the nonword GUB. Their intention to volunteer for community work (Study 1), donate their organs upon their death (Study 2), and the length of time in which they immersed their hands in ice-cold water (cold-pressor task) for the sake of charity (Study 3) were measured. In all 3 studies, participants who professed to believe in God showed higher prosocial responses when exposed to the God prime as compared with the non-God prime. However, this effect was not found among participants who professed to be nonbelievers. Furthermore, the results were constant across several different religions (i.e., Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, & Theism). Hence, results suggest that a personal belief in God moderates the priming effect of God on prosociality. Moreover, the importance of increasing specificity of the constructs examined and engaging in replications of priming studies are also discussed.