While theoretical models and empirical findings had vouched for the association between gratitude and prosociality, to date there is still an absence of a systematic synthesis of findings from the literature to fully support this claim.
Such a knowledge gap, coupled with the well-documented skepticism over the effectiveness of gratitude intervention — potentially attributable to the inadequate understanding of which aspect of gratitude the intervention should be focused on — would call for a comprehensive quantitative review on the gratitude-prosociality association.
In their recently published article in Psychological Bulletin, Ma, Tunney, and Ferguson (2017) conducted a meta-analytic review over 252 effect sizes — retrieved from 91 studies across 65 papers — in relation to the gratitude–prosociality link.
The authors endeavored to not only examine the overall strength of the overall effect estimate, but also to identify the theoretical and methodological factors that may moderate this effect estimate. In addition, the authors also included a comparison between the gratitude–prosociality association and associations with other prosocial emotions (including pride, empathy, etc.).
Overall, the analyses revealed a moderately positive correlation (r = .374) between gratitude and prosociality. Furthermore, the moderator analyses indicated that the association was significantly stronger among studies that examined reciprocal instead of non-reciprocal outcomes, and in particular among studies that assessed direct as compared to indirect reciprocal outcomes.
Studies which examined gratitude as an affective state reported significantly larger effect sizes than studies assessing gratitude as a trait. Additionally, studies which examined the benefit-triggered gratitude (elicited by others' benevolence) reported a greater gratitude–prosociality association than those focusing on the generalized gratitude (about appreciation of things cherished in life).
Moreover, the authors found that the effect sizes were significantly larger among studies involving in vivo (e.g., economic games or vignettes) than those involving recall-based elicitations of gratitude (i.e., participants asked to recall incidents of feeling grateful).
Last but not least, the comparisons of effect sizes with other prosocial emotions revealed that gratitude had one of the largest effect sizes, particularly for reciprocal exchanges.
On the basis of these findings, the authors concluded a few things.
First, consistent with the literature, the review demonstrated an unequivocal, moderate association between gratitude and prosociality.
Second, results of the moderator analyses highlighted that the strength of such an association is not uniform across different types of gratitude induced. Factors pertaining to how the gratitude was induced (in vivo vs. recall), what forms of gratitude (i.e., state vs. trait; benefit-triggered vs. generalized) was under scrutiny, and importantly, whether the prosociality alluded to involved direct reciprocal outcomes all played a significant role in moderating the strength of gratitude in relating to one's capacity of being prosocial.
Third, findings from the comparisons with other prosocial emotions — in terms of association with prosociality — underlined the potential of gratitude intervention to enhance one's prosociality and subjective well-being.
Specifically, based on the findings from the moderator analyses, the authors proposed several changes to optimize the effectiveness of future gratitude interventions on promoting prosociality.
For instance, complementing the recall approach utilized in the traditional gratitude exercise (which typically comprises elements of benefit-triggered gratitude and direct reciprocity), the practitioners may incorporate a more in vivo approach in which the trainee is either helped or witnessing another person being helped.
The trainee may be subsequently asked to contemplate how the feelings of gratitude would prompt their direct reciprocal endeavors, or how the feelings of gratitude which arose as a result of witnessing an act of benevolence (directed toward a third party) would propel that trainee to act prosocially toward the giver (i.e., downstream indirect reciprocity).
Citation
- Ma, L. K., Tunney, R. J., & Ferguson, E. (2017). Does gratitude enhance prosociality?: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 143(6), 601–635. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000103
Note: This article is in the Social Psychology & Social Processes topic area. View more articles in the Social Psychology & Social Processes topic area.