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Philip C. Watkins

Gratitude
and the
Good Life
Toward a Psychology of Appreciation
Gratitude and the Good Life
Philip C. Watkins

Gratitude and the Good Life

Toward a Psychology of Appreciation

123
Philip C. Watkins
Department of Psychology
Eastern Washington University
Cheney, WA, USA

ISBN 978-94-007-7252-6 ISBN 978-94-007-7253-3 (eBook)

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Acknowledgements

For me, my foray into the science of gratitude has been a very fulfilling journey,
and this pursuit has benefitted by the contribution of so many people. I have found
that the scholars involved with the science of gratitude are unusually supportive, and
rarely if ever have I experienced any sense of competition from these exceptional
individuals. In this regard, I am particularly grateful to Mike McCullough, Jeff
Froh, Alex Wood, Nate Lambert, and Giacomo Bono. I feel particularly indebted
to Bob Emmons, whose initial encouragement and ongoing support and friendship
have been such a valuable part of this pursuit. Bob has been essential in the
development and growth of the science of gratitude, and I am genuinely grateful
for his contribution to my work and my life.
I find myself also deeply grateful for my colleagues in the Psychology Depart-
ment at Eastern Washington University. In particular the advice and friendship of
Russell Kolts has been very valuable to me. In those times when I wonder if I
am really accomplishing anything, Russell has always been there to support my
work. I would also like to express my appreciation for the grants department at
Eastern Washington University. In particular, Ruth Galm and Tracy Springberry
have been so helpful in garnering support for my work. The administration of
Eastern Washington University has also been very important to this endeavor. Their
willingness to support this somewhat nontraditional avenue of research has been
crucial. In this regard, I would like to particularly express my appreciation to my
deans during the last 15 years: Jeff Chertok and Vickie Shields.
Perhaps the most important contributors to my research have been my students.
Their passion for this field, their time commitment, their creative ideas, and their
hard work has made my research program possible. I am consistently surprised
at how much more my students give to me than I ever give to them. I hesitate
to mention names here because all of the students that have been a part of my
research have made my research team better. In particular though, Jens Uhder,
Stan Pichinevskiy, Andrew Pereira, Araceli Frias, Michael Van Gelder, Katherine
Ignacio, Tamara Stone, Dean Grimm, Amy Webber, Corby Martin, Aaron Brown,
Anthony Whitney, and Chris Floberg have been an encouragement and a great
support to my work on gratitude.

v
vi Acknowledgements

Finally and most importantly, I wish to thank my family for all their sacrifices that
have made this work possible. I am continually amazed how interested my children
are in my research, and they always seem to know when their father needs his space
to focus on his writing. Josh, Claire, and Meg, your love of learning inspires my
teacher’s heart. And finally I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to my bride.
Leslie, you have made the hardest sacrifices in helping me see this work through, and
your unfailing support has been crucial to completing this project. You are my rock.
Contents

1 Introduction: Why a Science of Gratitude? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Neglecting the Good: Ignore It and It Will Go Away. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The Importance of a Science of Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3 Furthering the Science of Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.4 Conclusion: A Guiding Theory of Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Part I The “What” of Gratitude

2 What Is Gratitude and How Can It Be Measured? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

2.1 The Legacy and Grammar of Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2 Levels of Analysis in Emotion Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 Defining Gratitude. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3.1 Defining Gratitude as an Emotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3.2 Defining Gratitude as an Affective Trait. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3.3 Defining Gratitude as a Mood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.4 Gratitude and Appreciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.5 Measuring Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.6 The Debt of Gratitude: Distinguishing Gratitude
from Indebtedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3 What Causes Gratitude?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.1 Activating Events of Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.2 The Cognitive Conditions of Gratitude: Recognitions of Gratitude 42
3.2.1 Recognizing the Gift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2.2 Recognizing the Goodness of the Gift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.2.3 Recognizing the Goodness of the Giver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.2.4 Recognizing the Gratuitousness of the Gift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

vii
viii Contents

3.2.5 It’s a Wonderful Life: Death, Deprivation,

and Gratitude. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2.6 Beauty and Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.3 Inducing Gratitude in the Lab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4 What Good Is Gratitude?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.1 Gratitude and Emotional Well-Being. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2 A Cycle of Virtue? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.3 Gratitude and Social Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.4 Gratitude and Physical Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5 What Are Grateful People Like?
Characteristics of Grateful People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.1 Guiding Theory for Understanding the Character
of Grateful People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.2 Three Pillars of the Grateful Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.3 The Demographics of Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.3.1 Gender and Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.4 The Disposition of Grateful People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.5 The Characteristic Adaptations of Grateful People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.6 The Life Stories of Grateful People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.7 The Spirituality of Grateful People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.8 Summary and Conclusions About the Grateful Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Part II The “How” of Gratitude

6 Does Gratitude Enhance Experience of the Present? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

6.1 Does Gratitude Increase the Frequency of Pleasant Experiences? . 104
6.2 Does Gratitude Enhance the Enjoyment of Pleasant Experiences? 107
6.3 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
7 Does Gratitude Enhance Experience of the Past? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
7.1 Memory and Happiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
7.2 Does Gratitude Enhance the Accessibility of Positive Memories? 122
7.3 Does Gratitude Enhance the Enjoyment of Positive Memories? . . . 133
7.4 Does Gratitude Make Blessings Easier to Recount,
or Does Recounting Blessings Make People More Grateful? . . . . . . 135
7.5 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Contents ix

8 Does Gratitude Enhance Social Well-Being? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

8.1 Seeing Gratitude as a Moral Emotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
8.2 How Gratitude Promotes Social Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
8.2.1 People Like Grateful People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
8.2.2 Gratitude Helps Form and Bond Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.2.3 Gratitude Helps Maintain Relationships. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
8.2.4 Gratitude Promotes Prosocial Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
8.3 Conclusion: The Find-Remind-and-Bind Theory of Gratitude . . . . 154
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
9 Does Gratitude Enhance Coping Ability? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
9.1 The Importance of Positive Emotion in the Coping Process . . . . . . . 161
9.2 Experiencing Gratitude in the Midst of Trauma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
9.3 Grateful People Cope Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
9.4 The How of Grateful Coping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
9.4.1 Grateful Reframing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
9.4.2 Taking Care of Business with Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
9.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
10 Does Gratitude Prevent Negative Affectivity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
10.1 What Does Positive Psychology Have to Offer
Negative Psychology? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
10.2 The Relationship Between Gratitude and Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
10.3 How Does Gratitude Contravene Depression? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
10.3.1 Gratitude May Enhance the Enjoyment of Activities . . . . . 180
10.3.2 Gratitude May Enhance the Awareness
of Pleasant Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
10.3.3 Gratitude May Counteract Rumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
10.3.4 Gratitude May Encourage Positive Reappraisal. . . . . . . . . . . 186
10.3.5 Gratitude Enhances Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
10.3.6 Summarizing How Gratitude Contravenes
Depression: Egosystem Versus Ecosystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
10.4 Conclusion: How Gratitude Moves Us from Self-Focus
to Other-Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
11 How Does Gratitude Develop? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
11.1 How Cognitive Development Cultivates Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
11.2 Is Gratitude Good for Children? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
11.3 How Secure Attachment Cultivates Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
11.4 Life Events in the Development of Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
11.5 Cultivating the Development of Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
11.5.1 Parenting Styles that May Cultivate Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
11.5.2 Training Children to Cultivate Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
x Contents

11.6 Conclusions About the Cultivation of Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
12 What Inhibits Gratitude? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
12.1 How Suspiciousness Inhibits Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
12.2 How Indebtedness Inhibits Gratitude. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
12.3 How Envy and Materialism Inhibit Gratitude. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
12.4 How Narcissism Inhibits Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
12.5 Conclusions About the Inhibitors of Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
13 How Can Gratitude Interventions Be Used to Enhance Well-Being?. 225
13.1 Gratitude Interventions that Have Been Shown
to Enhance Well-Being. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
13.1.1 Grateful Recounting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
13.1.2 Grateful Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
13.1.3 Grateful Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
13.1.4 Grateful Reappraisal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
13.2 Interventions Designed to Enhance Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
13.3 What Might Moderate Gratitude Treatments? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
13.4 Future Innovations for Gratitude Treatment Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
13.5 Conclusions About Gratitude Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
14 Conclusion: Explaining Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
14.1 Explaining What Gratitude Is: The Moral Affect
Theory of Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
14.2 Explaining What Causes Gratitude:
The Social-Cognitive Model of Gratitude. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
14.3 Explaining How Gratitude Enhances Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
14.3.1 Gratitude Broadens and Builds: Explaining
How Gratitude Enhances Personal
and Communal Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
14.3.2 Find, Remind, and Bind: Explaining How
Gratitude Enhances Social Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
14.3.3 Amplifying the Good: Explaining How
Gratitude Is Important to the Good Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
14.4 Summary and Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Chapter 1
Introduction: Why a Science of Gratitude?

Sadly, while plumbing the depths of what is worst in life,

psychology has lost its connection to the positive side of life –
the knowledge about what makes human life most worth living,
most fulfilling, most enjoyable and most productive.
–Martin E. P. Seligman (1998)

Why should there be a science of gratitude? For that matter, why should there be
a science of positive psychology? Given the economic, social, and psychological
problems in the world, does it even make sense to spend valuable research time and
money on the “positive side of life”? Psychological disorders seem to be increasing
in prevalence, so why should we even be writing articles and books on gratitude
and positive psychology? In this chapter I hope to answer these questions; I hope to
demonstrate why a science of positive psychology is needed, and why a science of
gratitude is an important aspect of that endeavor.

1.1 Neglecting the Good: Ignore It and It Will Go Away

First, I would like to argue that psychology has been overly focused on the unpleas-
ant side of life. But before discussing psychology’s bias toward the negative, it is
important to be clear about the definition of positive psychology, and Seligman’s
definition contained in the epigraph is as good as any. Positive psychology is the
scientific study of “the positive side of life”, and this includes four important facets:
the factors that make life “most worth living, most fulfilling, most enjoyable, and
most productive.” Elsewhere Seligman has defined the four “pillars” of positive
psychology, which he cites as the study of subjective well-being, positive emotions,
positive psychological traits, and positive institutions. Clearly, gratitude is one of

P.C. Watkins, Gratitude and the Good Life: Toward a Psychology 1

of Appreciation, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-7253-3 1,
© Springer ScienceCBusiness Media Dordrecht 2014
2 1 Introduction: Why a Science of Gratitude?

6
Happy
% of Total Citations

5
Sad

Fig. 1.1 Percent of “Happy” and “Sad” citations by decade (Note: “Happy” citations included the
following descriptors: joy, happy, happiness, subjective well-being, life satisfaction, contentment,
euphoria, cheer. “Sad” citations included the following descriptors: Sad, depressed, depression,
dysphoria, dysphoric, melancholy, melancholic)

those “positive emotions” and is also a “positive psychological trait.” Why is it

important to study these subjects?
Because psychology’s preference for studying unpleasant emotions and
unhappiness has been well documented in the literature (e.g., Diener, Suh, Lucas,
& Smith, 1999), I will not continue to bemoan this bias here. Instead, I would like
to emphasize some interesting trends in this bias. In Fig. 1.1, I show the proportion
of studies that investigated positive and negative conditions over time. There are
several aspects of this figure I would like to highlight. First, note that I computed
the number of citations by decade as a percent of the total number of citations in
a given decade. Although not always done in this way, I believe it is important
to deal with proportions because the number of publications in psychology has
generally increased over the years as the discipline of psychology has grown.1

1
A quick note is in order about the total number of citations over the years. Although in general
the total number of citations has grown over the years—and at times has grown exponentially—the
total number of citations actually decreased from the 1930s to the 1940s. This is likely because of
the war effort.
1.1 Neglecting the Good: Ignore It and It Will Go Away 3

Thus, proportions allow us to see whether there has been real change in the study
of these variables relative to other areas of concern in psychology. I conducted an
unrestricted word search using PsycInfo that emphasized happiness and sadness.
Rather than choosing a number of positive and negative state variables, I chose
to focus on these two states because it is well known that there are more distinct
negative than positive emotions.2 Second, note how the study of emotional variables
(both positive and negative) seemed to reach a low point in the 1950s. I believe that
this was probably because of the dominance of the behavioral paradigm at the time;
the zeitgeist was that emotions were unseen variables that could not be studied
scientifically. Third, note how the study of emotion has progressively increased
since the 1950s.
The final point I would like to highlight in this figure is how the study of positive
emotion has grown relative to the study of negative emotions in recent years. The
turning point appears to have occurred in the 1960s, when the study of pleasant
emotions continued to decline but the study of unpleasant states began increasing.
Although the study of positive emotions has grown in the last 40 years, this appears
to be reflective of the general growth in interest in the study of emotion, rather
than increased interest in positive affect per se. Indeed, the increase in the study
of positive emotions has been dwarfed by the growth in the study of unpleasant
emotions over the last 40 years. Interest in negative emotions showed a steep incline
during the 1980s, and seems to have reached its apex in the 1990s. Only during the
last decade has the interest in the study of positive emotions gained slightly on the
study of unpleasant states. Thus, although recently researchers are indeed devoting
more of their research efforts to the study of positive emotions, there has been a
much greater increase in the study of negative emotions over the last 40 years. In
sum, the negative bias in psychology has increased in recent years.
But perhaps this is as it should be. Perhaps unpleasant emotional states are more
frequent and more important than pleasant emotions, and thus they should receive
more research attention. In fact however, positive affective states are experienced
much more frequently than negative states. A good example of this positive emotion
bias is found in the experience sampling study conducted by Carstensen, Pasupathi,
Mayr, and Nesselroade (2000). In this study participants were paged five times per
day at random intervals and were asked to report their current emotional experience
on 11 negative and 8 positive emotional states. On average, participants were over
three times more likely to be experiencing a positive than a negative emotional state.
For example, there was an 89 % chance that a participant would be experiencing
“happiness” at any given sampling point, while there was only a 28 % chance
that they would be experiencing any sadness. The most frequently experienced
negative emotional state was anxiety (reported on 44 % of the sampling occasions),
whereas the least frequently reported positive emotion was reported on 69 % of

2
I also conducted a literature search using a number of positive and negative state terms, and I also
conducted title searches on these variables. Basically all of the literature searchers that I conducted
revealed the same story.
4 1 Introduction: Why a Science of Gratitude?

the experience sampling prompts (“excitement”). This finding is typical of studies

using various methods of emotional experience sampling (e.g., Diener & Diener,
1996; Fredickson, Tugade, Waugh, & Lewis, 2003), and suggests that our focus
on negative emotional experiences in psychological science is not reflective of
the actual emotional experience of individuals in their day-to-day life. As Diener
and Diener titled their article, the frequency of emotional experience indicates
that “Most people are happy”, but our research focus seems to imply that most
people are miserable. Because pleasant emotional states are experienced much more
frequently than unpleasant states, perhaps more research attention should be devoted
to investigating the positive side of peoples’ emotional life.
Furthermore, people are much more likely to recall positive than negative
experiences from their recent past. I have found this frequently in my lab, and a
recent prospective study illustrates this bias. In this investigation we assessed 140
people four times over a 2-month period. Amongst administering a number of well-
being variables, we also asked individuals to recall “salient experiences from the
last week” for a 5-min recall period. On average, our participants recalled over
four times as many positive as negative memories over the 5-min period (9.63
vs. 2.18). The greatest bias however, occurred during the first minute of recall
(when one would expect the most accessible memories to be remembered). Here
people recalled almost 4.7 times more positive than negative memories. In everyday
experience and in memory, people experience far more positive than negative
emotional events.
One can also evaluate important sources of literature to evaluate the frequency of
the positive and negative. I systematically evaluated this with the English Bible.3
Although many think of this sacred text as oriented toward the negative with a
punitive emphasis, the results of word searches show otherwise. I conducted several
different word searches and all told the same basic story. Although the bias is
stronger in the New Testament, both testaments showed a bias toward references
to positive states. Figure 1.2 illustrates the results of one of my word searches. This
search is probably most comparable to Fig. 1.1 because I focused on biblical words
that were relevant to happy and sad states. Because the Old Testament is much
larger than the New, the variable on the ordinate is a percentage of the total number
of state references in the respective testament. Note that both testaments show a
positive bias, and in the New Testament there are over twice as many references to
happy than sad states. Thus, even in ancient sacred texts there seems to be more
emphasis on the positive over the negative.
It could be argued however, that although positive emotions are experienced more
frequently, negative experiences have a greater impact on an individual’s emotional
well-being. Perhaps positive states should be viewed as the default emotions, and
because we devote more attention and cognitive effort to negative affective states
(Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, 2001), the experience and frequency
of unpleasant emotions are more important to life satisfaction. Again however,

3
In this search I used the English Standard Version of the Bible.
1.1 Neglecting the Good: Ignore It and It Will Go Away 5

80

71.6
70
% of Total Emotion Words by Testament 65.6

60
Happy

50 Sad

40
34.4

30 28.3

20

10

0
Old Testament New Testament

Fig. 1.2 Happy/sad biblical word count (Note: Because the Old Testament is much larger than
the New Testament, I used a dependent variable that was the percentage of total emotion words in
each testament. “Happy” words: joy, rejoice, blessed, happy, glad, cheerful; “Sad” words: Sorrow,
mourn, cursed, sad, weep gloomy. Totals represent these words and their appropriate derivatives.
In the case of “blessed” and “cursed” however, I did not use any derivatives)

the actual data contradict this theory. For example, in our study described earlier,
positive affect at Time 1 predicted satisfaction with life at Time 4 (about 2 months
later) better than did Time 1 negative affect (Pearson r D .41 vs. .28). Furthermore,
we found that even with our depression measure (CES-D), positive affect predicted
depression 2 months later about as well as negative affect (.271 vs. .268). This is
consistent with other work suggesting that depression may be caused by a deficit
in positive affect as much as it is caused by excess negative affect (e.g., Davidson,
1993, see Chap. 10 this volume). The interesting implication of these findings is that
aspects of positive psychology may turn out to be important to negative psychology.
Perhaps even more striking are the well-known results of the so-called “Nun Study”
(Danner, Snowden, & Friesen, 2001). In this study the positivity of nuns’ spiritual
autobiography written in their early twenties predicted survival rates 50–70 years
later. In other words, nuns who wrote more positively about their life actually
lived longer. This does not appear to be an isolated finding because this has been
conceptually replicated in the writings of psychologists and from the positivity
and intensity of smiles in baseball players’ photographs (Abel & Kruger, 2010).
Moreover, in a recent meta-analysis (Howell, Kern, & Lyubomirsky, 2007), happy
individuals were found to live about 14 % longer than those who were unhappy.
This is not to say that negative emotional experiences (or the lack thereof) are not
6 1 Introduction: Why a Science of Gratitude?

important considerations in evaluating well-being, but clearly positive emotional

experiences are at least as important.
Why has psychological science seemed to be so biased to investigating negative
emotional states and traits? Again, this issue has been well described in other work
(e.g., Diener et al., 1999; Myers & Diener, 1995), but here I would like to emphasize
one additional factor I believe is important to understanding this trend. In 2001
Baumeister and colleagues published a compelling review concluding that when it
comes to emotional experiences and emotional information, “Bad is stronger than
good.” Bad emotional experiences, bad interactions with others, bad feedback, bad
memories, and bad emotional information have more psychological impact on us
than good. A simple example may suffice. After reading my student evaluations
from a class, 30 of the 35 students may offer me positive feedback, but perhaps
2–3 students have something critical or unpleasant to say about my teaching. What
aspect of this feedback will tend to dominate my consciousness? It’s usually the
negative comments that consume my attention. Bad events and bad experiences
probably consume our attention because they point out that something is wrong,
and it needs to be fixed soon (if not immediately). I believe that this effect has
carried over from individuals to psychological scientists. Just as it is much easier
for individuals to dwell on their bad experiences and bad traits over their good
ones, so it is easier for us as psychological scientists to focus on fixing unpleasant
emotions and negative traits. These are problems that demand attention—not only
to individuals but to psychological scientists as well—and they need to be fixed
“right now.” Unfortunately, because “Bad is stronger than good”, the good is easily
neglected, and perhaps this is one more reason why more energy should be devoted
to investigating the good life.

1.2 The Importance of a Science of Gratitude

As part of the constellation of positive emotions, psychological science has ne-

glected gratitude along with the other positive affects. A simple comparison of
gratitude and depression research illustrates this neglect. A PsycInfo key word
search reveals that studies of depression have been published over 246 times
more than studies on gratitude (67,672 vs. 275). One might justifiably complain
that I’m cheating here a bit because depression is a disorder whereas gratitude is
an emotional state. However, when one compares sadness to gratitude the result
reveals over a seventeen to one bias. But isn’t sadness experienced more frequently
than gratitude? Again the answer appears to be “no.” For example, Fredrickson,
Tugade, Waugh, and Larkin (2003) found that gratitude was experienced much more
frequently than any other negative emotion in the 2 weeks following the 9/11 attacks
(this included both anger and sadness). Furthermore, as shown by McCullough,
Kilpatrick, Emmons, and Larson (2001), gratitude is arguably the prototypical
emotion that is experienced in the context of receiving benefits. Because benefit
exchange is an important interaction for humans, this alone should make gratitude an
1.4 Conclusion: A Guiding Theory of Gratitude 7

important topic for research. But perhaps the argument could be made that although
gratitude is a common human emotion, it is not an emotion of much consequence.
Perhaps it is somewhat of an epiphenomenon of human exchange sequences, and
the experience of gratitude adds no meaningful consequences to one’s life.
Are there any important consequences to the experience of gratitude? Or, to put
it differently: What good is gratitude? The primary argument of this book is that
gratitude is an important facet of emotional well-being. I will review this research in
more detail in Chap. 4 (see also Watkins, 2004, 2008; Watkins, Van Gelder, & Frias,
2009 for reviews), but let me anticipate by summing up this research. A number
of studies have shown that gratitude is strongly correlated with various measures
of subjective well-being (SWB), and experimental work has provided promising
evidence that gratitude is not merely associated with well-being, it actually causes
increases in happiness. In fact, because gratitude has been so strongly associated
with SWB when compared to other traits and virtues, some have referred to gratitude
as the “poster child” of positive psychology (Wood, Froh, & Geraghty, 2010). In
brief, gratitude appears to be important to the good life, and this alone should
encourage research into this vital topic.

1.3 Furthering the Science of Gratitude

In a nutshell, the goal of this book is to further the science of gratitude. Through
this book I hope to clearly explain this important state and trait, and I hope to
encourage new research on gratitude by describing useful research designs and
specific suggestions for future research. I attempt to accomplish this goal in two
major sections of the book: the “what” and the “how” of gratitude. In the first section
I describe what gratitude is, what causes gratitude, and what grateful people are like.
I also provide a crucial chapter where I explain the good of gratitude. The chapters
in this section are titled by a series of questions and in each of these chapters I hope
to answer these issues by reviewing the research to date. In the second section of
the book I explain the “how of gratitude.” In Chap. 4 I show that gratitude appears
to be an important component of living well, but the question remains, “How does
gratitude enhance well-being?” In the second section I hope to answer this question
by proposing a number of putative gratitude/well-being mechanisms. By necessity
this section will be more theoretical and speculative than the first, but my hope is that
by providing a theory about how gratitude enhances well-being, this will promote
new research that will investigate these mechanisms.

1.4 Conclusion: A Guiding Theory of Gratitude

A running theme throughout this book will emphasize my theory regarding the
function of gratitude. Other helpful theories of gratitude have emphasized the nature
of gratitude (e.g., McCullough et al.’s, 2001 moral emotion theory of gratitude),
8 1 Introduction: Why a Science of Gratitude?

the causes of gratitude (e.g., Wood, Maltby, Stewart, Linley, & Joseph’s social-
cognitive theory, 2008), and how gratitude can be adaptive (e.g., Fredrickson’s
“broaden-and-build theory” of positive emotions, 1998, 2001, 2004; Algoe’s “find,
remind, and bind theory” of the social function of gratitude, 2012). In this text I
will introduce a more general theory that attempts to explain the functionality of
gratitude. At a convention several years ago a colleague asked me, “Why is gratitude
so great?” We had been discussing a number of the encouraging research findings
about gratitude, and this apparently provoked his question. I propose that gratitude
enhances well-being because psychologically it amplifies the good in one’s life.
Just as an amplifier magnifies the sound going into a microphone, so gratitude
amplifies the information that it feeds off of. Just as a magnifying glass magnifies
the text it is focused on, so gratitude magnifies the good that it is focused on.
An amplifier increases the strength of a signal. In the case of gratitude, it should
function to increase the signal strength of the good in one’s life. I submit that
gratitude helps people live well because it clearly identifies who and what is good
for individuals, and in this way gratitude amplifies the good in one’s life. Thus,
when one experiences gratitude, psychologically this emotion organizes cognitive
and behavioral resources to clearly identify the things and people that are important
to their well-being. When one is aware of those factors that are important to living
well, then they will be motivated to pursue those people and things, and thus their
well-being will be enhanced. Moreover, not only does gratitude amplify the external
good that contributes to one’s well-being, it also amplifies the good within a person.
When individuals feel grateful, I propose that they should be more likely to be
good to others; i.e., gratitude promotes prosocial behaviors. I will attempt to use
this amplification theory to introduce and organize the findings on gratitude in this
book. Throughout the course of this text, I will also try to expand on this theory
with the goal of generating more testable hypotheses on gratitude. I believe that
this amplification model provides a helpful organization and understanding of past
research, and my hope is that this theory will promote future investigations on
gratitude as well.

References

Abel, A. L., & Kruger, M. L. (2010). Smile intensity in photographs predicts longevity.
Psychological Science, 21, 542–544.
Algoe, S. B. (2012). Find, remind, and bind: The functions of gratitude in everyday relationships.
Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6, 455–469.
Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good.
Review of General Psychology, 5, 323–370.
Carstensen, L. L., Pasupathi, M., Mayr, U., & Nesselroade, J. R. (2000). Emotional experience in
everyday life across the life span. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 644–655.
Danner, D. D., Snowden, D. A., & Friesen, W. V. (2001). Positive emotions in early life and
longevity: Findings from the nun study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80,
804–813.
References 9

Davidson, R. J. (1993). The neuropsychology of emotion and affective style. In M. Lewis &
J. M. Haviland (Eds.), Handbook of emotion (pp. 143–154). New York: Guilford Press.
Diener, E., & Diener, C. (1996). Most people are happy. Psychological Science, 7, 181–185.
Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades
of progress. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 276–302.
Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What good are the positive emotions? Review of General Psychology,
2, 300–319.
Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-
build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218–226.
Fredrickson, B. L. (2004). Gratitude, like other positive emotions, broadens and builds.
In R. A. Emmons & M. E. McCullough (Eds.), The psychology of gratitude (pp. 145–166).
New York: Oxford Press.
Fredrickson, B. L., Tugade, M. M., Waugh, C. E., & Larkin, G. R. (2003). What good are positive
emotions in crises? A prospective study of resilience and emotions following the terrorist
attacks in the United States on September 11th, 2001. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 84, 365–376.
Howell, R. T., Kern, M. L., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2007). Health benefits: Meta-analytically
determining the effect of well-being on objective health outcomes. Health Psychology Review,
1, 83–136.
McCullough, M. E., Kilpatrick, S. D., Emmons, R. A., & Larson, D. B. (2001). Gratitude as moral
affect. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 249–266.
Myers, D. G., & Diener, E. (1995). Who is happy? Psychological Science, 6, 10–18.
Seligman, M. E. P. (1998). Positive social science. APA Monitor, 29(4), 2.
Watkins, P. C. (2004). Gratitude and subjective well-being. In R. A. Emmons & M. E. McCullough
(Eds.), The psychology of gratitude (pp. 167–192). New York: Oxford University Press.
Watkins, P. C. (2008). Gratitude: The amplifier of blessing. In A. Przepiorka (Ed.), Closer to
emotions II. Lublin, Poland: Publishing House of Catholic University of Lublin.
Watkins, P. C., Van Gelder, M., & Frias, A. (2009). Furthering the science of gratitude. In R. Snyder
& S. Lopez (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed., pp. 437–446). New York:
Oxford University Press.
Wood, A. M., Froh, J. J., & Geraghty, W. A. (2010). Gratitude: A review and theoretical integration.
Clinical Psychology Review, 30, 890–905.
Wood, A. M., Maltby, J., Stewart, N., Linley, P. A., & Joseph, S. (2008). A social-cognitive model
of trait and state levels of gratitude. Emotion, 8, 281–290.
 Part I
The “What” of Gratitude
Chapter 2
What Is Gratitude and How Can It Be
Measured?

Thankfulness or gratitude is a desire or eagerness of love, by

which we strive to benefit one who has benefitted us from a like
affect of love.
–Spinoza

Perhaps it is almost too obvious to say that before a construct can be investigated
it must first be adequately defined. However trite that dictum seems to be, it is still
important to emphasize, particularly when it comes to a construct such as gratitude.
As with many words, gratitude is used in a number of ways in common usage. In
various contexts gratitude can refer to an emotional state, an emotional expression, a
character trait, or even a virtue. Thus, it is important that we are clear about the terms
we are using in the study of gratitude. Many examples could be cited in the social
sciences showing that when a construct has not been adequately operationalized,
this has led investigators into many cul-de-sacs and needless debates. Until one
knows what one is aiming at, one had best not pull the trigger. Gratitude is probably
like other emotional states—we all know what it is until we attempt to define it—
but defining it is still an important task. Until we clearly delineate what we are
investigating, we cannot proceed to study it. In order for a science of gratitude to
progress we must first operationalize this construct. Thus this chapter is devoted
to explaining a clear definition of gratitude, and various approaches that have been
taken to measuring it. Before presenting my definition of gratitude however, I feel it
would be helpful to provide a brief linguistic history of the word. I will then review
Rosenberg’s helpful typology of emotion, followed by my preferred definition of
gratitude. Here I will discuss an important issue in the understanding of gratitude:
the relationship of gratitude to appreciation. I will then present an extensive section
describing the current approaches to measuring gratitude, and will conclude the
chapter with an important discussion about the relationship between gratitude and
indebtedness.

P.C. Watkins, Gratitude and the Good Life: Toward a Psychology 13

of Appreciation, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-7253-3 2,
© Springer ScienceCBusiness Media Dordrecht 2014
14 2 What Is Gratitude and How Can It Be Measured?

2.1 The Legacy and Grammar of Gratitude

Before offering a definition of gratitude, I think it is helpful to provide a brief

history of the words grateful and thank. The word grateful probably originated
in the sixteenth century (Ayto, 1990). The adjective “grate”, which a person is
full of when they feel grateful, is now obsolete. It was derived from the Latin
“gratus” which means pleasing or thankful. In fact, often in sixteenth or seventeenth
century literature a writer would use “grateful” when they simply meant that they
felt pleased. All associations with “gratus” are positive, and this is consistent with
research showing that gratitude belongs with the positive affects (Brunner, Watkins,
& Webber, 2010; McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002; Watkins, Woodward,
Stone, & Kolts, 2003). Interestingly, the word “grace” is also derived from “gratus.”
Moreover, in Greek “charis” does double-duty for both gratitude and grace (Bruce,
1963). This etymology suggests interesting associations between unmerited favors
and gratitude, and I will expand on this connection below.
“Thank” has an even longer history than “grateful”, and probably originated
before the twelfth century. It was derived from “thoughtfulness” and then evolved
into “favorable thought.” Thus, early in this word’s history thoughtfulness seemed
to be essential to giving thanks. Indeed, we shall see that gratitude is a mindful and
cognitively imbued emotion. Moreover, as I show in Chap. 3, favorable thought
about another person is crucial to experiencing gratitude. Indeed, Lazarus and
Lazarus (1994) have argued that because gratitude involves thoughtfulness about the
benefits that one receives from others, it should be viewed as one of the empathic
emotions. How mindful must one be about the mental state of one’s benefactor
in order to experience gratitude? Is accuracy about the benefactor’s state of mind
important to gratitude? Or is it simply a particular belief about the mindset of the
benefactor that is important (regardless of whether this belief is accurate)? These
are interesting questions that deserve research attention.
The history of gratitude as a practice is also illuminating. Virtually all major
religions and cultures have encouraged gratitude (Emmons & Crumpler, 2000).
While recorded civilizations seemed to have encouraged some form of grateful
expression, not all languages have an equivalent for “thank you” (Visser, 2009).
Cultural variations in grateful expressions are interesting. For example, often the
Japanese will say “I’m so sorry” in situations where Americans would say “thank
you.” In the South Indian culture they do not have a phrase for “thank you”, but they
express their gratitude with some kind of return favor (Appadurai, 1985). A study
of the cultural variations in the linguistics of gratitude is beyond the scope of this
book, but see Visser for an intriguing review of this issue.
Although gratitude has largely been venerated as a virtue across time and
cultures, there have been occasional detractors. Aristotle for example, did not think
that gratitude was becoming to the noble man. This is because when one expresses
gratitude they are admitting that someone else has contributed to their well-being.
The source of well-being for the noble man however, is only to be found in himself.
As one of the thinkers important to Western individualistic thought, I find Aristotle’s
2.1 The Legacy and Grammar of Gratitude 15

view of gratitude informative. This may help explain some interesting gender and
cultural differences in gratitude that I shall discuss later. Aristotle was not alone
in his distaste for gratitude. For example, Henry Ward Beecher claimed, “Next to
ingratitude, the most painful thing to bear is gratitude.” Joseph Stalin apparently
had an even lower view of gratitude. He is said to have declared, “Gratitude is a
sickness suffered by dogs.” Perhaps these quotes reflect the Western individualistic
attitude that one should be independent and provide for one’s own welfare, but it is
important to highlight that in general these opinions have been the exception rather
than the rule.
Others have proposed that pivotal events in history have revolved around
gratitude. Gerrish (1992) for example, has argued that the reformation teachings
of Calvin and Luther were primarily “Eucharistic”—theologies that focused on
God’s grace and the human response of gratitude. Thus, for the Reformers the
primary motivation for the religious life was a response of gratitude for the Divine
gift of salvation, rather than attempting to achieve good works to earn salvation
from God. Karl Barth—perhaps the most influential theologian of the twentieth
century—characterizes the Reformed attitude: “Grace and gratitude belong together
like heaven and earth. Grace evokes gratitude like the voice an echo. Gratitude
follows grace like thunder lightening” (Barth, 1956/1961, p. 41). It is interesting
that although a significant amount of research has explored the impact of forgiving
another, little research has investigated the potential benefits of receiving forgive-
ness. Indeed, the psychology of religion seems to have spent little time investigating
experiences of grace in religious people. The history of gratitude suggests that
experiences of grace may be important to gratitude, and this would seem to be a
fruitful path for future research.
Perhaps influenced by the lingering impact of the Reformation, the history of the
Thanksgiving holiday in the United States is an interesting study. On November 1st,
1777, Sam Adams wrote the first declaration for an official Thanksgiving Holiday
that was adopted by the 13 original states:
It is therefore recommended : : : to set apart Thursday the eighteenth day of December next,
for solemn thanksgiving and praise, that with one heart and one voice the good people may
express the grateful feelings of their hearts and consecrate themselves to the service of their
divine benefactor.

In 1789 George Washington then declared in his first Presidential Proclamation: “It
is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey
his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and
favor.” Abraham Lincoln then reinstituted the American holiday in 1863. Included
in his Thanksgiving Proclamation he wrote: “We have been the recipients of the
choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace
and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation
has ever grown.” It is worth noting that this was written in the midst of America’s
brutal Civil War. The annual Thanksgiving Holiday has been maintained in the
United States since Lincoln’s proclamation, and to this day this appears to be
a vibrant holiday. Indeed, a recent Gallup poll showed that Thanksgiving was
16 2 What Is Gratitude and How Can It Be Measured?

the happiest day of the year for Americans. Although attempts have been made
to secularize this celebration, the quotes above show that this was essentially a
theocentric commemoration, and current Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations
illustrate that this event still appears to be focused on thanksgiving directed to
the Divine. This highlights the spiritual aspects of gratitude, and this has become
a vibrant area of research in the psychology of religion that I will explore in
Chap. 5.

2.2 Levels of Analysis in Emotion Research

Erika Rosenberg wrote an influential paper on emotional phenomena that I believe is

very helpful to organizing our understanding of gratitude. Rosenberg (1998) argued
that in order to accurately understand the function of emotions, it was important
to be clear about the level of analysis of the phenomena under study. Her approach
followed philosopher William Wimsatt (1976), who attempted to resolve issues with
reductionism and emergentism in the mind-body problem with this approach. He
argued that while it is appropriate to explain higher mental processes in terms of
molecular mechanisms (e.g., neurochemical processes), there are many higher-level
functions that cannot be adequately understood through molecular explanations.
Thus, higher-level accounts still provide explanatory models that cannot be reduced
or “explained away” by lower level molecular explanations. Rosenberg cites a
passage from Wimsatt’s chapter that illustrates his approach:
The point of reduction is not to get an “infinite regress” explanation for “essentially
everything” in terms of “essentially nothing,” but only to make sure that everything gets
explained—at some level or another. This in fact allows for the possibility that some things
may require explanation at higher levels. (Wimsatt, 1976, p. 225)

Rosenberg applied Wimsatt’s levels of analysis approach to emotional phenomena,

and I believe that her approach is helpful for understanding the various facets of
gratitude as well.
Rosenberg divides affective phenomena into three levels of analysis: affective
traits, emotions, and moods. An affective trait is an emotional disposition, and
describes a particular person’s threshold for experiencing a particular emotion. For
example, a cheerful person should have a relatively low threshold for experiencing
joy, thus they should experience joy easily and relatively frequently. Similarly a
hostile person would be prone to anger, would have a low threshold for anger and
would become angry in situations of slight provocation where most people would
not experience anger. Affective traits are seen to be at the top of the affective
hierarchy (i.e., indicating higher level processes), because affective traits “exert
an organizational influence on affective states” (Rosenberg, 1998, p. 250). Given
that these are traits, affective traits are relatively stable compared to emotions and
moods. Affective traits exert their influence at the background of consciousness, and
individuals are typically unaware of their activity.
2.3 Defining Gratitude 17

At the other end of the affective continuum are emotions. Emotions are relatively
brief “psychophysiological changes” (p. 250) that result from an appraisal of a
specific situation in one’s life. Rosenberg proposes (rightly I think) that these
appraisals may be deliberative or automatic, and this will be an important issue
when considering the appraisals that lead to gratitude. Of the three levels of affective
phenomena, emotions are the most accessible to awareness and therefore tend to be
in the foreground of consciousness. Moods share characteristics of emotions and
affective traits. Like emotions, moods are transient states, but are usually longer in
duration than emotions and tend to operate at the background of consciousness.
Unlike emotional states, moods states are not about anything in particular, but
Rosenberg argues that being in a particular mood state might facilitate the congruent
emotion. For example, if one is in an angry mood, this is likely to lower the
threshold for experiencing anger. If an individual is in an angry mood this would
make it more likely for them to become angry in a situation that may not usually
frustrate them. I have found that this typology has been very helpful for developing
a comprehensive understanding of the phenomena of gratitude, and I will follow this
schema in defining gratitude.

2.3 Defining Gratitude

2.3.1 Defining Gratitude as an Emotion

Following the approach of Emmons (2004), I have argued that the emotion of
gratitude is experienced when one affirms “that something good has happened to
them, and they recognize that someone else is largely responsible for this benefit”
(Watkins, 2007). Several aspects of this definition deserve some elaboration. First,
the “something good” is not only a benefit that has just taken place. Individuals may
recall or become aware of a past benefit, and consequently experience gratitude.
Indeed, the “benefit” may be a “good” that is not temporally limited. Many times
individuals become grateful when they reflect on a “good” that has happened at
some time in the past, and others become grateful when they become aware of a
faithful benefit that has been consistent over time. So for example, on a wedding
anniversary a husband may begin reflecting on the many benefits that his wife
provides for him—things that he may have been taking for granted. Friendship
in marriage is not a benefit that happens at a particular point in time and is a
good that is not temporally limited. Even though this friendship is not confined
to a particular event, one may become conscious of this benefit and consequently
experience gratitude. In this sense someone may be grateful for a person because
of the many benefits that they provide. Furthermore, I take a broad approach to
defining what is “good.” Good things may be positive benefits that have been added
to one’s life, but “good” things may also be the removal of unpleasant conditions.
In this sense the perceived benefit may be the awareness of the absence of some
18 2 What Is Gratitude and How Can It Be Measured?

negative event. For example, after landing safely at an airport in the midst of a
severe lightening storm, gratitude is a likely response. Some research has found that
gratitude is the dominant emotion for survivors of a hurricane (Coffman, 1996).
Presumably, this is because the hurricane makes one aware of the bad that might
have happened (not surviving the hurricane), but in fact this undesirable situation
did not take place (see also Teigen, 1997).
Secondly, I would like to note that the source of the benefit is external: someone
else is largely responsible for the benefit. Thus, one cannot be grateful toward
one’s self. Affirming that I am responsible for something good is essentially the
appraisal that leads to pride, a very different emotion from gratitude. A person may
be grateful for aspects of their self, but this is because they feel that someone else
has contributed to this quality. To illustrate, I may feel grateful that my parents
developed in me an appreciation for beauty. One somewhat controversial aspect
of my definition is that the external source of the benefit is personal in some way
(“someone else is largely responsible for the benefit”). The “someone else” need not
be a human benefactor (e.g., one may be grateful to God), but I submit that when
one experiences gratitude they are personalizing the source of the benefit in some
way; in some way the benefactor is viewed as an intentional agent that has benefitted
them. The fact that people are grateful toward their pets, toward impersonal forces
(e.g., “fate” or “luck”), or even inanimate objects may seem inconsistent with my
proposal here, but the issue is not whether the “benefactor” is in fact intentionally
benefitting the one experiencing gratitude, the issue is that the grateful individual has
personalized the benefactor in some way. Thus, a pet may not intentionally provide
benefits to his owner, but if the owner feels that her pet has intentionally benefitted
her, she will experience gratitude. Even if the source of the benefit is vague, the
grateful person feels that something has intentionally benefitted her. I submit that
often in these cases this aspect of the appraisal is implicit or non-conscious. Clearly,
I am taking a strong view of the personalization of the benefactor. Although some
research supports this idea of perceived intentionality on the part of the benefactor,
my position here is largely speculative and this might be an interesting research
avenue to pursue. In this vein, I believe that more research could be devoted to
experiences of gratitude where there is no obvious human benefactor. For example,
in one study we found that exposure to natural beauty prompted gratitude (Watkins,
Gibler, Mathews, & Kolts, 2005).
Research largely supports the definition of gratitude provided above, but recent
work has provided a more complete picture of the emotion of gratitude. Clearly,
research has shown that gratitude is a positive affect—people experience gratitude as
a pleasant emotion and it tends to covary with other positive emotions (e.g., Brunner
et al., 2010; Watkins, Scheer, Ovnicek, & Kolts, 2006). Some studies have found
that grateful emotion correlates negatively with negative affect, but most studies
have found that the relationship is stronger with positive affect (e.g., McCullough
et al., 2002; Watkins et al., 2003). Perhaps this is an obvious and expected finding,
but I believe these results are significant because social science scholars have often
equated gratitude with indebtedness, which is usually understood as an unpleasant
state. The issue of the relationship of gratitude to indebtedness is an important
2.3 Defining Gratitude 19

one, and I will present a more thorough discussion of this issue later. Others
have proposed that gratitude should correlate with aesthetic emotions such as awe
(Keltner & Haidt, 2003), and our study that I mentioned earlier has provided some
support for this idea (Watkins et al., 2005). Furthermore, Algoe and Haidt (2009)
found that gratitude is related to the “other-praising” emotions of elevation and
admiration, and these three states seem to be distinct from other positive emotions. Is
gratitude more strongly correlated with some positive emotions than others? I know
of no published study that has looked directly at this question, but the answer would
have some interesting implications for our understanding of gratitude. For example,
some have proposed that gratitude is a subtle emotion, but some evidence suggests
that it might be an invigorating emotion (Emmons & McCullough, 2003). More
research on the subjective qualities of grateful emotion is needed.
The duration of gratitude appears to be like other emotions. Although this
has been a neglected area in emotion research, Verduyn, Delvaux, Van Coillie,
Tuerlinckx, and Van Mechelen (2009) found that like other emotions, gratitude lasts
longer when the event is judged to be more important. Interestingly, they found that
one’s initial intensity of experience also predicted duration, independently of the
judged importance of the provoking event.
Although many different definitions have been presented on the basic compo-
nents of emotions, all theorists seem to agree that every emotion is associated
with action tendencies: each emotion prepares us to act in certain ways. When
one is afraid, one feels like running, when one is angry, one has the urge to
fight. Fredrickson (1998) has pointed out that this component of emotions is
based on the prototype of negative emotions. She then argues (rightly I think) that
consideration of positive affects leads us to the conclusion that we must consider
thought tendencies as well as action tendencies when studying emotion. Thus, a
comprehensive description of the emotion of gratitude should include thought/action
tendencies that are associated with this state. When one is grateful, what does
one have the urge to do or think? In a nutshell, the thought/action tendencies of
gratitude can be characterized as prosocial, but I think it is important to flesh out
this conclusion.
In one study, we compared the action tendencies of gratitude to indebtedness
(“feeling obligated to repay”) in a vignette study (Watkins et al., 2006). We
investigated 26 action tendencies and reduced these to 6 factors. First, supporting
Fredrickson’s Broaden and Build theory of positive emotions (1998), we found
that gratitude was positively correlated to the number of action tendencies endorsed
(r D .44), but indebtedness was not (r D .08, ns). Thus, the more grateful a person
reported that they would be in response to the situation in the scenario, the more
thought/action tendencies they tended to endorse. This is consistent with Fredrick-
son’s idea that in contrast to negative emotions, positive emotions like gratitude tend
to broaden a person’s repertoire of thought/action tendencies. Second, we found
that gratitude was positively correlated with prosocial thought/action tendencies,
and was negatively correlated with antisocial thought/action factors. Gratitude was
most strongly correlated with the factor we called “Adoration” (r D .57), but was
also moderately correlated with “Approach” (r D .40) and “Yielding” (r D .30).
20 2 What Is Gratitude and How Can It Be Measured?

The Adoration factor included items such as “I would feel like praising my friend to
others when my friend was not present”, “I would feel like expressing my happiness
to my friend”, and “I would feel like giving my friend a gift.” Moreover, the more
grateful a person reported that they would be, the less likely they reported antisocial
thought/action tendencies such as doing things actively or passively against their
benefactor. Thus, not only does gratitude promote prosocial action tendencies, it
also seems to inhibit antisocial thought/action tendencies. This was not the case
with indebtedness. Whereas gratitude was negatively associated with the total
number of antisocial thought/action tendencies endorsed (r D .25), indebtedness
was positively associated with the number of antisocial thought/action tendencies
(r D .20).
Although vignette studies such as this have fallen out of favor in recent
years because of questions about subjects’ ability to make judgments in imagined
scenarios, I believe that this methodology still has a role to play in gratitude research.
Because appraisals can be carefully controlled in vignette studies in ways that
cannot be controlled in studies that use actual benefits, this methodology will still
prove to be useful. It is certainly true however, that in order to establish the prosocial
nature of gratitude thought/action tendencies, studies that use actual benefits are
needed. Fortunately, a number of studies have found that indeed, when a benefit
is provided that produces gratitude, prosocial responses are likely (e.g., Bartlett &
DeSteno, 2006; Grant & Gino, 2010; for a review, see McCullough, Kilpatrick,
Emmons, & Larson, 2001). Indeed, the prosocial characteristics of gratitude are so
notable that one of the prominent theories of gratitude has argued that gratitude is
essentially a moral emotion (McCullough et al., 2001). This is an important aspect
of gratitude and there is too much data to adequately review it here. Indeed, the
prosocial aspect of gratitude may be one of the most important mechanisms that
explains why grateful people tend to be happy people. Grateful people may tend to
be happier because of the many social benefits that gratitude offers. Because of the
importance and extensive results that speak to this issue, I have devoted an entire
chapter to the prosocial components of gratitude (see Chap. 8).
How do lay people define gratitude? Recently, Lambert, Graham, and Fincham
(2009) conducted an extensive investigation of lay conceptions of gratitude. In
a series of studies they demonstrated that lay conceptions of gratitude conform
to a prototype: gratitude is not so much determined by a rigid set of category
rules, as it is by a compendium of central features. They also present evidence
that people conceive of gratitude in at least two ways: benefit-triggered gratitude
and generalized gratitude. Their evidence did not suggest that these were two
qualitatively different types of gratitude, but people did report stronger gratitude
responses to generalized gratitude scenarios than they did to the more specific
“benefit-triggered” vignettes. In my view these are two ends of a dimension from
more time-limited and specific benefits to more general benefits that are not limited
by time and may in fact consist of a number of benefits. For example, one may
be grateful for a salary raise (a specific or “benefit-triggered” gratitude event),
or they may be grateful for their spouse (not a time limited benefit, and one’s
spouse probably represents many benefits). This work highlights the importance of
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