Gratitude in University Students in Japan and Thailand

Abstract

The authors surveyed 212 university students in Japan and 284 university students in Thailand, using a multiaspect questionnaire that was designed to investigate cultural similarities and differences in gratitude. The questionnaire included the items involved in hypothetical helping situations: (a) perceived gains of recipients, cost to benefactors, and obligation to help as antecedent variables of gratitude; (b) both positive feelings of gratitude and feelings of indebtedness; and (c) requital to benefactors and increased prosocial motivation of recipients as an outcome of gratitude. In both Japanese and Thai students, positive feelings cor-related with facial and verbal expressions of gratitude and increased prosocial motivation. However, the variable of feelings of indebtedness was positively related to increased prosocial motivation only in Japanese male students.