Gratitude Increases Recipients’ Commitment Through Automatic Partner Evaluations, Yet Unreciprocated Gratitude Decreases Commitment Through Deliberative Evaluations

Abstract

Feelings of gratitude motivate intimates to maintain valuable relationships. However, it is unknown whether expressions of gratitude similarly increase recipients’ relationship commitment. Two experiments tested the idea that expressions of gratitude simultaneously increase and decrease recipients’ commitment via different interpersonal evaluations, and reciprocity of gratitude determines the implications of such expressions. In Study 1, couples exchanged letters that did or did not express gratitude. Study 2 was a high-powered, preregistered experiment that led participants to believe they were or were not grateful for their partners, and their partners were or were not grateful for them. Both studies subsequently assessed automatic partner evaluations, deliberative partner and self-evaluations, and relationship commitment. Results demonstrated that intimates automatically evaluated partners who expressed gratitude more favorably and thus became more committed; however, if intimates did not reciprocate such gratitude, their deliberate self-evaluations became more favorable than their partner evaluations, and thus they became less committed.

Do I Like You? Effects of Daily Negative Events and Implicit Self-Esteem on Daily Implicit Partner Regard

“…This suggests that, within the context of romantic relationships, positive events may outweigh negative ones (Totenhagen et al, 2012). This is in line with research showing that expressing gratitude toward a partner increased automatic partner evaluations (Baker, 2021), although further research is needed to see whether these findings will replicate. Consistent with previous work (DeHart et al, 2011), there was also an overall main effect of implicit self-esteem predicting implicit partner evaluations such that high implicit self-esteem participants reported more positive daily implicit partner evaluations.…”

Gratitude Increases the Motivation to Fulfill a Partner’s Sexual Needs

“…Participants were 285 individuals who were recruited using MTurk. A sample size of at least 200 participants was obtained because an a priori power analysis based on previously obtained effect sizes from a different manipulation of gratitude ( r = .24; Baker, 2020) indicated that the power to detect the association between the gratitude manipulation and interpersonal evaluations was .84 with 200 participants at an α of .05. This study was conducted during a period of elevated nonhuman and/or nonserious respondents on MTurk (Chmielewski & Kucker, 2019); thus, 82 participants were excluded for not following directions or failing attention checks.…”

The Impact of Leader Gratitude Expressions on Followers’ Behaviours: Increasing Gratitude and Increases Proactivity

“…Similarly, Woods et al (2015), Barton et al (2015), and Park et al (2019) found that receiving gratitude expressions from a partner helps to increase relationship satisfaction and marital quality, as well as buffering insecurely attached individuals from experiencing low relationship satisfaction and low commitment. Baker (2021) tested the relationship between gratitude expressions and commitment, and found that intimates automatically evaluated partners who expressed gratitude more favourably and thus became more committed.…”