Adler (2002; Adler & Fagley, 2001) argued that being appreciative facilitates and enhances feelings of well-being and life satisfaction, as well as feelings of connection to what we have, to what we experience, and to life itself. In addition, expressing appreciation to others is believed to build social bonds. Although appreciation is viewed as a disposition, it is also viewed as something people can learn over time, making it an especially valuable construct to measure. Appreciating something (e.g. an event, a person, a behavior, an object) involves noticing and acknowledging its value and meaning and feeling a positive emotional connection to it. We defined eight aspects of appreciation and developed scales to measure them: a focus on what one has ("Have" Focus), Awe, Ritual, Present Moment, Self/Social Comparison, Gratitude, Loss/Adversity, Interpersonal. Scores on the subscales may be totaled to yield a score representing one's overall degree of appreciation (or level of appreciativeness) (coefficient alpha=.94). We also developed an 18-item short form (coefficient alpha=.91) that correlates .95 with scores on the long form. The scales correlated in predicted ways with measures of life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. More importantly, appreciation was significantly related to life satisfaction and positive affect, even after the effects of optimism, spirituality, and emotional self-awareness had been statistically controlled.

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Tversky and Kahneman reported a large effect of the framing of decision options on choice. When options were phrased positively in terms of gains, people chose the sure thing. But when options were phrased negatively in terms of losses, people chose the risky option. However, not all researchers have replicated this finding, especially when using different decision problems and task requirements. Consequently, problem and/or task variables may be important. The current study investigated two problem variables: degree of apparent gain/loss in the risky option (e.g., partial vs. total) and probability of success in the risky option. The effect of requesting a rationale on the framing effect was also studied. Although framing significantly affected choice, its effects were mediated or moderated by rationale request, degree of apparent gain/loss, and probability, sometimes in complex ways. The findings suggest that framing is less pervasive than previously believed.

Two studies examined the effect of an individual difference variable, need for cognition (NC), and processing of the options on the occurrence of risky choice framing effects. In Study 1 (N ¼ 206), frame interacted with NC and math skill such that no framing effect was observed among those high in both NC and math skill. No effect was found for the processing manipulation of requesting a reason for one's choices. Study 2 (N ¼ 257) enhanced the processing of the problems by asking participants to write out the options as they would describe them to a friend. Results showed that frame interacted with NC and depth of processing such that no framing effect was observed among those high in NC who were in the deep processing condition. These findings suggest that NC and depth of processing need to be considered in concert in order to understand their moderating effects on framing.

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