Gratitude, Indebtedness, and Regret on Receiving a Friend's Favor in Japan

Abstract

To explore different functions of gratitude and indebtedness, two questionnaire studies were conducted with female university students in Japan. These studies examined the correlations between positive feelings, regret, and indebtedness when receiving a favor, and the resulting feelings such as the enhancement of prosocial motivation (wish to help) and the obligation to help others. The results of Study 1 suggested that positive feelings and indebtedness in a hypothetical helping situation differently correlated with other variables: Positive feelings had a significant positive correlation with the enhancement of prosocial motivation. In contrast, indebtedness had a significant positive correlation with enhancement of obligation (should help). Study 2 was conducted by using positive and socially conceptualized feeling items such as the fulfillment of friendship. Results suggested that the social conceptualization might add obligatory nature to the positive feelings.

Disentangling the Effects of Gratitude and Optimism: A Cross-Cultural Investigation

“…We also hypothesize that Asian American and Asian participants will experience increases in guilt (Hypothesis 3) but not sadness (Hypothesis 4), compared with Anglo-Americans. We expected that guilt, in particular, will be increased due to its connection to feeling indebtedness while practicing gratitude, which has been shown in collectivistic samples (Kimura, 1994;Naito & Sakata, 2010;Washizu & Naito, 2015). Guilt is a basic fundamental emotion (Kemper, 1987) which has been shown to have a strong correlation with indebtedness (Watkins, Scheer, Ovnicek, & Kolts, 2006).…”

“…Washizu and Naito (2015) suggested that Sumanai , a Japanese term used to describe a feeling a person’s experience in reaction to a favor, consists of several emotions, including gratitude, indebtedness, and guilt. Furthermore, a study by Naito and Sakata (2010) found that gratitude in Japanese participants was accompanied by positive feelings such as warmth, as well as negative feelings such as remorse, indebtedness, and regret. The higher level of indebtedness that accompanied gratitude led to lower levels of satisfaction with life, which is the opposite from what is seen in individualistic samples.…”

Gratitude, indebtedness, and reciprocity: an extended replication of Bartlett & DeSteno (2006)

“…In contrast, while it is clear that gratitude and indebtedness are distinct emotions that co-occur after receiving benefits (Algoe, Gable, & Maisel, 2010;Peng, Nelissen, & Zeelenberg, 2018Tsang, 2006b;Watkins, Scheer, Ovnicek, & Kolts, 2006), indebtedness received far less attention in the literature. Meanwhile, recent insights also suggest that reciprocal behavior could actually be attributed to indebtedness rather than gratitude (Greenberg, 1980;Peng et al, 2018), or at least indebtedness has a complementary role in shaping reciprocal behavior (Algoe et al, 2010;Naito & Sakata, 2010;Tsang, 2007;Watkins et al, 2006).…”

An Attitude of Gratitude: Older Japanese in the Hopeful Present

“…It may well be the case that their ability to emphasize gratitude as a positive orientation to the world allowed them a greater sense of wellbeing. Indeed, one psychological study with middle-aged women in Japan suggested that those who felt a sense of gratitude upon receiving a favor from a friend generally evaluated that experience more positively than those who associated this with gratitude as a sense of debt, obligation, and/or burden, that has been placed on their friend (Naito and Sakata 2010).…”