Neural correlates of gratitude

Abstract

Gratitude is an important aspect of human sociality, and is valued by religions and moral philosophies. It has been established that gratitude leads to benefits for both mental health and interpersonal relationships. It is thus important to elucidate the neurobiological correlates of gratitude, which are only now beginning to be investigated. To this end, we conducted an experiment during which we induced gratitude in participants while they underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging. We hypothesized that gratitude ratings would correlate with activity in brain regions associated with moral cognition, value judgment and theory of mind. The stimuli used to elicit gratitude were drawn from stories of survivors of the Holocaust, as many survivors report being sheltered by strangers or receiving lifesaving food and clothing, and having strong feelings of gratitude for such gifts. The participants were asked to place themselves in the context of the Holocaust and imagine what their own experience would feel like if they received such gifts. For each gift, they rated how grateful they felt. The results revealed that ratings of gratitude correlated with brain activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex, in support of our hypotheses. The results provide a window into the brain circuitry for moral cognition and positive emotion that accompanies the experience of benefitting from the goodwill of others.

Decomposing Gratitude: Representation and Integration of Cognitive Antecedents of Gratitude in the Brain

“…In this context, the activation may reflect recipients' genuine goodwill for the benefactor's welfare and the motivation of actively seeking reward for the benefactor. Another possibility is that this activation encodes a self-focused motivation underlying reciprocity, such as avoiding guilt and indebtedness (Fisher et al, 1982;Nadler and Fisher, 1986;Watkins et al, 2006;Manela, 2016). If this is the case, then the recipients do not reciprocate because they desire to reward the benefactor, but because they are averse to the anticipated guilt of not doing so (Fehr and Schmidt, 2006).…”

Why should I be grateful? The morality of gratitude in contexts marked by injustice

“…It is worth noting here that no major psychological study thus far has centrally involved comparisons of gratitude's benefits in contexts of inequality or oppression, (quite reasonably) focusing instead usually on gratitude's benefits and manifestations in relatively affluent western contexts (e.g. Lambert, Graham & Fincham, 2009;Froh et al, 2014;Fox et al, 2015).…”

The hidden cost of receiving favors: A theory of indebtedness

“…This construct is related to communal relationships described by psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists (Algoe, 2012;Algoe et al, 2008;Clark and Mills, 1993;Clark and Mills, 2012;Elfers and Hlava, 2016;McCullough et al, 2001;Nowak and Sigmund, 2005), while obligation, in contrast, corresponds more to transactional exchange relationships (Greenberg, 1980;Greenberg and Westcott, 1983;Watkins et al, 2006). Future work might design tasks that can better differentiate between gratitude and guilt to explore whether these two emotions of communal concern have shared or differential neurocognitive mechanisms (Chang et al, 2011;Fox et al, 2015;Koban et al, 2013;Krajbich et al, 2009;Yu et al, 2017;Yu et al, 2018;Yu et al, 2014).…”