Daily Dynamics of Grateful Mood, Emotional Support from Parents, and Psychological Well-Being across Seven Days among Korean Adolescents

Abstract

Even though gratitude is considered as an important virtue to possess for successful adulthood, little is known about what cultivates gratitude and its benefits associated with psychological well-being among adolescents. By examining gratitude as a daily mood, this study asked (1) whether adolescents` daily grateful mood varied as a function of daily parental emotional support and (2) whether adolescents` psychological well-being varied as a function of daily grateful mood within person across seven days. The sample consisted of 70 adolescents in 8th grade recruited from a public middle school. Participants completed daily diary checklists online each evening for seven days. On days when adolescents perceived greater parental emotional support from mother or father than they typically did during the week, they rated their grateful mood to be higher than other days. With more emotional support from father, adolescents reported more grateful mood not only on that day, but also the following day. While this result highlights the important role that parents play in adolescents` experience of grateful mood, emotionally supportive behaviors of fathers appear particularly promising for cultivating gratitude. Further, daily grateful mood on a given day accounted for the significant variance in adolescents` psychological well-being not only on the same day, but also the following day. Research and practical implications of the results are discussed.