Abstract
Gratitude is an important aspect of human sociality, and is valued by religions and moral philosophies. It has been established that gratitude leads to benefits for both mental health and interpersonal relationships. It is thus important to elucidate the neurobiological correlates of gratitude, which are only now beginning to be investigated. To this end, we conducted an experiment during which we induced gratitude in participants while they underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging. We hypothesized that gratitude ratings would correlate with activity in brain regions associated with moral cognition, value judgment and theory of mind. The stimuli used to elicit gratitude were drawn from stories of survivors of the Holocaust, as many survivors report being sheltered by strangers or receiving lifesaving food and clothing, and having strong feelings of gratitude for such gifts. The participants were asked to place themselves in the context of the Holocaust and imagine what their own experience would feel like if they received such gifts. For each gift, they rated how grateful they felt. The results revealed that ratings of gratitude correlated with brain activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex, in support of our hypotheses. The results provide a window into the brain circuitry for moral cognition and positive emotion that accompanies the experience of benefitting from the goodwill of others.
Highlights
How would you feel if in the middle of your most distraught moment, unbound from your every day comforts and scared for your survival, a complete stranger saved your life? When we are the beneficiaries of good human conduct, we can experience feelings of gratitude
We hypothesized that ratings of gratitude would correlate with brain activity in circuits associated (1) with moral cognition; (2) with reward from the pleasure of receiving a benefit in social interactions; and (3) with social cognitive processes such as perspective-taking and theory of mind
All four runs were combined using a fixed effects analysis. This parametric regressor was orthogonalized with respect to the main reflection period regressor; the results presented for this regressor represent the variance explained in the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response by the subjects ratings of gratitude
Summary
When we are the beneficiaries of good human conduct, we can experience feelings of gratitude. Empirical investigations of gratitude are relatively rare (Emmons and McCullough, 2004), this is beginning to change (Watkins, 2014). Recent studies have shown that gratitude is associated with benefits to subjective well-being (Emmons and McCullough, 2003; Froh et al, 2008), increased resilience to trauma (Kashdan et al, 2006) and benefits to social relationships (Algoe et al, 2008; Lambert et al, 2010). The results from psychological investigations of gratitude have laid a foundation for what can be expected when we facilitate the experience of gratitude
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