Poster #5 - Defining gratitude: A theoretical and methodological review of research with children and adolescents

• In Event: 3-005 - Poster Session 3 during Lunch

Abstract

What is gratitude? In common parlance, gratitude signifies either a general thankfulness or a more specific event- or person-focused appreciation. The Merriam-Webster dictionary reflects this duality, defining gratitude as “affording pleasure or contentment” and as “an appreciation of benefits received.” However, psychologists’ definitions of gratitude are more varied and ambiguous than those of their lay counterparts, and are frequently incongruent with one another. Gratitude interventions are increasingly common in character education, but what construct are these interventions targeting and how is it being measured? Moreover, are gratitude interventions attempting to merely increase feelings of gratefulness or are they encouraging gratitude as a character trait? To gain a clearer understanding of the current state of gratitude research and its implications for character education, we conducted a review of all 57 peer-reviewed journal articles on children and adolescents with the keyword “gratitude” published between 2012 and 2015.

A qualitative analysis of these articles yielded three main types of definitions—dispositional (26.4%), emotional (40%), and reciprocal (7.5%), with multiple studies using more than one definition (17%). Emotional gratitude included three sub-definitions (social, relational, and general) (see Figure 1), and was defined as a positive feeling, deriving from: a benefit from a benefactor (social emotional gratitude, 13.2%); considering the costs to and intentions of a benefactor (relational emotional gratitude, 15.1%%), considering only the benefit (general emotional, 5.7%), and using multiple emotional definitions (7.5%). Dispositional gratitude was defined as a generalized tendency to appreciate the positive, and reciprocal gratitude was defined as a positive feeling in response to a benefit from a benefactor and a desire to repay the benefactor. A further 20.8% provided no definition of the construct (see Figure 2).

We note several problems beyond the differing gratitude definitions used in the literature. First, operationalization of the construct often does not match the definition. The Gratitude Questionnaire-6 (GQ6: McCullough et al., 2002) (developed to measure dispositional gratitude) was the most commonly employed, regardless of definition (see Figure 2). Second, experiencing a positive emotion, either as a momentary state or a disposition, may be entirely unrelated to gratitude. Feeling such an emotion, but consistently failing to reciprocate to a benefactor, is a sign of ingratitude rather than gratitude. These problems raise concerns about the validity of “gratitude” research and interventions based on them.

Authors

• Jessica Navarro, University of North Carolina Greensboro
  Presenting Author

• Haley Morris, University of North Carolina Greensboro