Join with a free account for more service, or become a member for full access to exclusives and extra support of WorldSupporter >>
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:
The Unifactorial GQ-6
Multifactorial Appreciation Scale
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.
Psychology: History and Application
- Darwin's "Natural Science of Babies" (summary)
- A Biological Sketch of an Infant (summary)
- Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims (summary)
- Biographical Origins of Francis Galton's Psychology (summary)
- Behavioral Activation Treatment for Depression: Returning to Contextual Roots (summary)
- Science, serotonin, and sadness: the biology of antidepressants (summary)
- Feeling connected again (summary)
- Cognitive-behavioral treatment of depression (summary)
- Motivational Interviewing and Self-Determination Theory (summary)
- Self-determination theory and work motivation (summary)
- Twelve tips to stimulate intrinsic motivation in students (summary)
- The influence of the intensity of the stimulus on the length of the reaction time (summary)
- The calibration of minds and machines in late nineteenth-century psychology (summary)
- Clinical Psychology (summary)
- Lightner Witmer: Little-known founder of clinical psychology (summary)
- Alfred Binet – A truly applied psychologist (summary)
- Efficiency of women workers (summary)
- Natural suggestibility in children (summary)
- Lillian M. Gilbreth's contributions to the development of management thought (summary)
- Exploring the Mechanisms of Self-Control Improvement (summary)
- A Social Cognitive View of Self-Regulated Learning About Health (summary)
- Implementation Intentions (summary)
- Self-Regulation Failure: Procrastination (summary)
- Acceptance-Based Therapy and Procrastination (summary)
- A review of the causes and consequences of optimism (summary)
- Gratitude and well-being: A review and theoretical integration (summary)
- Find, Remind, and Bind: The Functions of Gratitude in Everyday Relationships (summary)
- Summary of the Promise of Sustainable Happiness
Contributions: posts
Spotlight: topics
Psychology: History and Application
Bundle of summaries of articles on the history and application of psychology.
Originally written by Rachel Wong.
Online access to all summaries, study notes en practice exams
- Check out: Register with JoHo WorldSupporter: starting page (EN)
- Check out: Aanmelden bij JoHo WorldSupporter - startpagina (NL)
How and why use WorldSupporter.org for your summaries and study assistance?
- For free use of many of the summaries and study aids provided or collected by your fellow students.
- For free use of many of the lecture and study group notes, exam questions and practice questions.
- For use of all exclusive summaries and study assistance for those who are member with JoHo WorldSupporter with online access
- For compiling your own materials and contributions with relevant study help
- For sharing and finding relevant and interesting summaries, documents, notes, blogs, tips, videos, discussions, activities, recipes, side jobs and more.
Using and finding summaries, notes and practice exams on JoHo WorldSupporter
There are several ways to navigate the large amount of summaries, study notes en practice exams on JoHo WorldSupporter.
- Use the summaries home pages for your study or field of study
- Use the check and search pages for summaries and study aids by field of study, subject or faculty
- Use and follow your (study) organization
- by using your own student organization as a starting point, and continuing to follow it, easily discover which study materials are relevant to you
- this option is only available through partner organizations
- Check or follow authors or other WorldSupporters
- Use the menu above each page to go to the main theme pages for summaries
- Theme pages can be found for international studies as well as Dutch studies
Do you want to share your summaries with JoHo WorldSupporter and its visitors?
- Check out: Why and how to add a WorldSupporter contributions
- JoHo members: JoHo WorldSupporter members can share content directly and have access to all content: Join JoHo and become a JoHo member
- Non-members: When you are not a member you do not have full access, but if you want to share your own content with others you can fill out the contact form
Quicklinks to fields of study for summaries and study assistance
Main summaries home pages:
- Business organization and economics - Communication and marketing -International relations and international organizations - IT, logistics and technology - Law and administration - Leisure, sports and tourism - Medicine and healthcare - Pedagogy and educational science - Psychology and behavioral sciences - Society, culture and arts - Statistics and research
- Summaries: the best textbooks summarized per field of study
- Summaries: the best scientific articles summarized per field of study
- Summaries: the best definitions, descriptions and lists of terms per field of study
- Exams: home page for exams, exam tips and study tips
Main study fields:
Business organization and economics, Communication & Marketing, Education & Pedagogic Sciences, International Relations and Politics, IT and Technology, Law & Administration, Medicine & Health Care, Nature & Environmental Sciences, Psychology and behavioral sciences, Science and academic Research, Society & Culture, Tourisme & Sports
Main study fields NL:
- Studies: Bedrijfskunde en economie, communicatie en marketing, geneeskunde en gezondheidszorg, internationale studies en betrekkingen, IT, Logistiek en technologie, maatschappij, cultuur en sociale studies, pedagogiek en onderwijskunde, rechten en bestuurskunde, statistiek, onderzoeksmethoden en SPSS
- Studie instellingen: Maatschappij: ISW in Utrecht - Pedagogiek: Groningen, Leiden , Utrecht - Psychologie: Amsterdam, Leiden, Nijmegen, Twente, Utrecht - Recht: Arresten en jurisprudentie, Groningen, Leiden
JoHo can really use your help! Check out the various student jobs here that match your studies, improve your competencies, strengthen your CV and contribute to a more tolerant world
2369 |
Add new contribution