Gratitude and well-being: A review and theoretical integration

Wood, A., Froh, J., & Geraghty, A. (2010). Gratitude and well-being: A review and theoretical integration. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 890-905.

The goal of the paper is to present a new model of gratitude (gratitude for receiving help but also by focusing and appreciating positive aspects of life; which is a life orientation approach). Gratitude is strongly related to well-being, and understanding how to improve well-being by fostering gratitude is extremely important in clinical psychology. This paper examines four forms of interventions to increase gratitude, along with methodological critiques, and a research agenda for the future study of these techniques. Finally, four mechanisms whereby gratitude may relate to well-being are evaluated.

Operationalisation of Gratitude

Within the field of gratitude research, a single definition has yet to be achieved. Several researchers have conceptualised gratitude as an emotion that is always directed towards appreciating the helpful actions of other people; however this conception fails to fully capture the aspects of life that people report to be their sources of gratitude, for example, in one study, participants reported “waking up in the morning” as a source of gratitude, and this does not appear to be directed towards a particular benefactor.

A "Life Orientation" Conception of Gratitude

The authors of this review propose that gratitude is part of a wider life orientation towards noticing and appreciating the positive in the world, distinct from other emotions such as optimism, hope, and trust. As such, three scales that measure gratitude have been developed:

1. The Unifactorial GQ-6

2. Multifactorial Appreciation Scale

3. The multifactorial Gratitude, Appreciation and Resentment Test (GRAT)

Each of these scales arose from different conceptions of gratitude, and together, provide insight on the 8 aspects of gratitude:

• Individual differences in the experience of grateful affect

• Appreciation of other people

• A focus on what the person has

• Feelings of awe when encountering beauty

• Behaviors to express gratitude

• Focusing on the positive in the present moment

• Appreciation rising from understanding life is short

• A focus on the positive in the present moment

• Positive social comparisons.

Studies have found that a grateful people express all eight aspects of gratitude. A further study found that these 8 aspects are all related; they are part of a higher form of gratitude. This supports the life orientation perspective of gratitude.

These eight aspects are to be taken as hierarchical. While all aspects are important, aspects in the same tier of the hierarchy are not necessarily identical. For example, in the Big Five Personality Model, both anxiety and vulnerability to stress fall under the category of neuroticism. Vulnerability to stress and anxiety are not the same construct, but are both indicators of a higher order 'neuroticism' dimension. As such, the hierarchical view of gratitude does not suggest that any two of the lower order facets of gratitude are identical, but rather that a single higher order grateful personality exists above each aspect of gratitude.

This higher order gratitude factor also covers expressing gratitude to non-social sources, and has thus widened the definition of gratitude. This factor also appears to represent a "life orientation towards the positive." People are considered high in life orientation if they experience the eight facets of gratitude frequently, intensely, and through a wide range of stimuli. The article suggests that gratitude may have some evolutionary benefits, as grateful people tend to draw attention to anything that can be appreciated in the world. As such, these people behave more in personally and socially productive manners.

Attribution theory and the reformulated learned helplessness theory suggest that well-being arises from how people interpret the events of their lives. Specifically, people with low well-being attribute their successes to causes that are uncontrollable, short-lived, and due to the actions of other people. If gratitude simply involved an interpersonal thankfulness, a person high in gratitude may actually have impaired well-being, as they would view the cause of positive life events as out o their own control and something to be thankful for. Instead, studies have found a positive relationship between gratitude and well-being, and as such, the view of gratitude as a higher order life orientation resolves this inconsistency.

Research into gratitude and personality, well-being, relationships and health

This article further describes how research in four key areas has led to a consistent picture of gratitude, which is shown to be a trait that is important for well-being and the understanding of psychopathology.

Personality

Gratitude has been found to be correlated with a wide variety of adaptive personality traits, characterized by positive well-being, high levels of personal development, and maintaining positive relationships. Grateful people were less angry and hostile, depressed, and emotionally vulnerable. They also experienced positive emotions more frequently and showed more signs of positive social functioning; emotional warmth, gregariousness, activity seeking, trust, altruism, and tender-mindedness. Grateful people also showed a higher level of openness towards their feelings, ideas, and values

Well-Being

Gratitude is robustly associated with each of the four conceptions of well-being:

• Psychopathology – Depression may be part of same continuum as happiness; and as such, gratitude may play a key role in happiness, and therefore, well-being. Additionally, thankfulness, a key component of gratitude, predicted significantly lower risk of 9 psychiatric disorders, including major depression and generalized anxiety disorder. Furthermore, gratitude is substantially lower in people with PTSD and was shown to relate to more daily self-esteem and positive affect, above the effects of symptomatology. Related is the effect of gratitude on "post-traumatic growth," or development that happens after a trauma. People's recovery from the traumatic experience is influenced by the extent to which they are able to find some benefit in the experience, which may explain findings that the relationship between gratitude and positive daily functioning (irrespective of symptomatology) in Vietnam War Veterans seems notably similar to the previously observed relationship between post-traumatic growth and recovery from trauma.

• General emotional functioning – Many studies support the link between gratitude and subjective well-being, with one suggesting that over 90% of American teens and adults indicated that expressing gratitude made them “extremely happy” or “somewhat happy”. The results of the examined studies indicate that gratitude appears to be robustly related to mood and life satisfaction.

• Existential functioning - Gratitude has also been linked to psychological, or “eudemonic” well-being, the type of well-being that represents a life lived the fullest. Gratitude is correlated to autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, purpose in life, and self-acceptance, covering most of the terrain of eudemonic well-being, as conceptualized by Ryff (1989).

• Humanistic Conceptions - Gratitude has been shown to be related to authenticity, a construct that represents the Rogerian concept of “congruence.” The main components of congruence are "self-alienation” (having a lacking sense of identity, inconsistent beliefs, and inaccurate symbolization of experiences), accepting external influences, and "authentic living" (behaving in ways consistent with personal beliefs and values), with authentic living being indicative of authenticity, and self-alienation and accepting external influence being indicative of inauthenticity. One study showed that gratitude was strongly positive correlated with authentic living and negatively correlated with self-alienation. These findings are interesting in light of arguments that gratitude serves an evolutionary purpose.

Relationships

Gratitude appears to be related to wide range social outcomes, development and maintenance, and positive relationships. For example, grateful people tend to be more willing to forgive and display a lower level of narcissism.

Health

While a highly understudied aspect, gratitude has been shown to be related to lower stress levels and may be important for sleep, as positive pre-sleep cognitions relate to improved sleep quality and quantity.

Issues in Gratitude Research

It remains unclear whether gratitude has a unique relationship with well-being, whether this relationship is simply due to shared variance other variables, or the direction of causality in these relationships. Several studies have shown that the relationship between gratitude and well-being persists when controlling for other variables, such as facets of the Big Five Personality Model. Many of these traits have been shown to relate to well-being, and if gratitude is to make a meaningful advance for the study of well-being, it is necessary to demonstrate that gratitude can predict well-being above other commonly studied traits. Because of the cross-sectional nature of gratitude research, it is very difficult to determine causality. However, complimentary longitudinal evidence, supports gratitude as a precursor of well-being, with one study showing that gratitude may confer resilience in a period of life transition.

Gratitude Interventions

Interventions related to gratitude can be divided into three categories:

Daily listing of things for which to be grateful - Participants often report that the technique is enjoyable and self-reinforcing, choosing to continue the exercise even after the ending of the intervention. Recently, the effect of making gratitude lists has been investigated in school settings. One study provides evidence that inducing gratitude in students via making gratitude lists may be a viable intervention for decreasing negative academic appraisals and simultaneously promoting a positive attitude about school.

Grateful contemplation –Participants were asked to reflect on positive events from a summer holiday for five minutes. Those who focused on what they were grateful for reported less negative affect.

Behavioral expressions of gratitude - Participants were instructed to go on a “gratitude visit”, consisting of writing a letter to a benefactor thanking them for the gift they received and read it to the benefactor in person. Compared to those who wrote about their early childhood memories, those who went on the gratitude visit reported more happiness and less depression at the immediate post-test and 1 month follow-up.

Mechanisms Linking Gratitude to Well-Being

Previous research has suggested four hypotheses to explain the link between gratitude and well-being:

• Schematic hypothesis - The more grateful someone is, the more value that person attaches to receiving help. The same help provided to a less grateful person is less valued.

• Coping hypothesis - Grateful people know how beneficial help is, so they find it in e.g. social setting. Coping reduces stress so increased gratitude decreases stress in this way.

• Positive affect hypothesis - The positive feeling gratefulness provides makes us feel more content. However research shows there is more than just this at work, after it being controlled for.

• Broaden-and-build hypothesis - Shows emotions as building blocks serving for discrete functioning. Gratitude is shown as one of these emotions serving as to build social bonds during to make additional resources in stressful times.

Hypotheses 1 and 2 are specific, while 3 and 4 are more general, both relating to the first two hypotheses.