What is the impact of dispositional gratitude on well-being? By synthesizing the literature, we evaluate the association between dispositional gratitude and mental well-being as a function of its various categories (i.e., positive, negative), dimensions (i.e., subjective, psychological), and indicators (e.g., life satisfaction, happiness, stress). Our meta-analytic aggregation of 404 effect sizes from 158 independent samples (N = 100,099) provides evidence that dispositional gratitude is moderately to strongly correlated with well-being, and that the strength of these associations varies by the indicator of well-being. We also examine potential moderators (i.e., religiosity, individualistic orientation, age, gender, dispositional gratitude measure, and sample type) of the association between dispositional gratitude and well-being. We find that country-level individualistic orientation, sample mean age, and sample type (i.e., clinical vs. non-clinical) present moderating effects for several of the relationships examined. We conclude the paper by presenting avenues for future research.
Two studies examined interventions to increase the frequency of gratitude expression among college students in two large lecture classes of an Introduction to Psychology course at a large university in southwest Virginia. Both studies evaluated the impact of a writing exercise designed to increase intentions to express gratitude in a prescribed manner. In addition, participants in both studies were given one week to express gratitude to people who performed prosocial behavior. Gratitude expression was assessed by self-report on a survey administered during the psychology class. In both studies, intentions to thank another person for a kind act were significantly higher in the Intervention class than in the Control class, but self-reported expressions of gratitude were significantly higher in the Control class than in the Intervention class. This was an unexpected "countercontrol effect." Directions for future research are discussed, as well as theoretical/methodological explanations.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.