General Gratitude Research Articles

A Comparative Study: Need for Affiliation and Gratitude among Young Adults Who Are/Aren’t In a Relationship

Humans, as social beings, have an inherent need for affiliation. This need to form social relationships and maintain them varies in degree from individual to individual. Need for affiliation is a need for open and sociable interpersonal relationships. A common definition of gratitude is “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness;”.Researchers have conceptualized gratitude as an emotion that is always directed towards appreciating the helpful actions of other people (c.f. McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons, & Larson, 2001). The aim of the present investigation was to compare among young adults who are in a relationship with those who aren’t on their need for affiliation and feeling of general gratitude. It was hypothesized that need for affiliation and gratitude will be more in people who are in a relationship from those who aren’t and there will also be gender differences in gratitude and need for affiliation. A sample of 210 participants of the age group 18-24 were selected from which 105 were in a relationship and 105 have never been in a relationship. Need for affiliation was assessed using Liking People Scale developed by E.E. Filsinger (1981) and gratitude using the Gratitude Questionnaire-6 by Michael E. McCullough (2002). Results shall be discussed in light of role of chosen variables and were interpreted in terms of their significance.

Positive prenatal well-being: conceptualising and measuring mindfulness and gratitude in pregnancy.

Little research has examined the usefulness of positive well-being factors during pregnancy. Recent mindfulness research demonstrates that inconsistencies and the suitability of extant measures have yet to be examined in pregnancy. Effects of gratitude during pregnancy have yet to be examined despite consistently reported benefits in non-pregnant groups. The aims of this paper were to develop the Gratitude during Pregnancy (GDP) scale, validate the Mindfulness Awareness Attention Scale (MAAS) and examine the importance of gratitude and mindfulness during pregnancy. In study 1, 375 pregnant women completed gratitude and mindfulness measures. The one-factor structure of the MAAS was retained and demonstrated good reliability α = 0.88. Using exploratory factor analysis, an 18-item GDP scale was developed, demonstrating good reliability α = 0.89. The four GDP factors are as follows: general gratitude, physical changes, antenatal care and social support. In study 2, 87 pregnant women completed well-being questionnaires, including the GDP and MAAS. Gratitude correlated with positive affect, life satisfaction and pregnancy uplifts (p < .001); mindfulness correlated negatively with negative affect and pregnancy hassles (p < .001) and positively correlated with positive affect and pregnancy uplifts (p < .05). These findings highlight the importance of mindfulness and gratitude and provide a reliable means to measure both constructs during pregnancy.

Gratitude From Early Adulthood to Old Age.

Are there age differences in gratitude from early adulthood to old age? The current studies tested several ways by which an association between age and dispositional gratitude may present, by considering multiple measures on both fronts. We used data from three cross-sectional studies (total N = 1,736; total age range: 19-94). The results indicated that (a) age effects in gratitude are more likely to occur for subjective age in terms of future time perspective (i.e., people's perceptions of their remaining opportunities and time) than chronological age; (b) chronological age effects are more domain specific than general in nature; and (c) they are more likely to occur for the instrumental domain as compared to the interpersonal domain. Finally, the results indicated that (d) perceived future time, particularly with respect to remaining opportunities, mediates the relation between chronological age and general gratitude. Overall, the findings suggest that gratitude is subject to a variety of developmental influences across adulthood.

Gratitude and mental health: differences between religious and general gratitude in a Muslim context

The present study examined the relation of religious gratitude and dispositional gratitude with mental health, subjective well-being and personality among a sample of 256 Iranian students. The two types of gratitude were associated with higher levels of mental health and well-being. Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were the strongest personality correlates of both types of gratitude. Dispositional gratitude showed stronger relationship with mental health, subjective well-being and personality factors. Dispositional gratitude also out-predicted the religious gratitude in relation with mental health and subjective well-being, showing that religious gratitude compared to dispositional gratitude has less effect on mental health and well-being.

Grateful to God or just plain grateful? A comparison of religious and general gratitude

Psychological science has consistently highlighted links between gratitude and religion, however mediating pathways by which religion relates to gratitude remain ambiguous. Further, it is unclear whether religious gratitude (e.g., gratitude to God) is more related to well-being than general gratitude. To address these gaps, we assessed for both religious and general dimensions of gratitude alongside measures of religious commitment and mental/physical well-being in a diverse sample of n = 405 adult individuals. Consistent with previous research, gratitude was positively correlated with religious commitment (r = 0.45, p < 0.001). This relationship, however, was fully mediated by gratitude towards God. Using hierarchical linear regression, results further found that the interaction of religious commitment and religious gratitude added unique variance in predicting mental well-being, over and above general gratitude. This suggests that being grateful to God enhances the psychological benefits of gratitude in accordance with one's level of religious commitment.

Dante's Rahab

Dante's Rahab Peter S. Hawkins (bio) When I first fell under John Freccero's spell in 1973, I was a Yale doctoral student seeking refuge from the English department. I was brought to the first meeting of his year-long Dante course by a refugee from French, but unlike her, I vowed only to sit in on the opening day: I was to be a one-time interloper in Corby Court. Yet by the end of that September day Dante—and his prophet, John Freccero—had me not only for the rest of that academic year but ever since. I have tried a few times in print to express my general gratitude to John for helping me find my life's work.1 In this essay I want to give tribute more particularly to the way he taught me to savor Dante's relationship to the Bible. How to summarize this complex relationship? On the one hand, the poet read the sacred text in a tradition of other readings: patristic, medieval, liturgical—a cloud of earlier witnesses. On the other hand, he invariably left his mark on inherited materials, made them distinctly his own, offered (to borrow a phrase from Wallace Stevens) "a new account of everything old."2 Take, for instance, what Dante does with Rahab, the harlot of Jericho, who makes a brief and wordless appearance in Paradiso IX. Dante would have known her primarily from the Book of Joshua. She is the brothel keeper who saves two Hebrew spies in Canaan by hiding them on her rooftop and then letting them escape through her window in the city walls (Joshua 2. 1–24). From that window she suspends a crimson cord, a reminder of her mercy to them and a pledge of [End Page S70] their protection when the walls come tumbling down. Joshua not only spares her from that destruction but brings her and her household into Israel (6: 15–25). It is not clear if Dante knew what the rabbis made of this story. Was he aware that they saw her as the archetypal proselyte, married her off to Joshua, made her into a matriarch of Israel—ancestress of eight prophets, including Huldah and Jeremiah?3 But surely he would have known her as one of Israel's matriarchs from her mention in the first chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, which opens with an Old Testament-like genealogy that includes women in what had been traditionally a masculine preserve. Among the three sets of fourteen generations that Matthew constructs for the time stretching between Abraham and Jesus, he names Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and "the wife of Uriah" (Bathsheba). Early Christian commentators on Matthew recognized that the four Old Testament women conspicuous in the list of the Messiah's male ancestors were not the obvious matriarchal choices: Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel. In fact, it became a point of honor for the Fathers to draw attention to skeletons in the family closet—to insist that the Savior's foremothers were women who could at one time have been prostitutes (like Rahab) or at least played the part when the occasion warranted (like Tamar); could be women who had dubious ethnic origins (like the Moabite Ruth) or who had engaged in illicit sexual activity (Bathsheba). According to Jerome, "it should be noted that none of the holy women [of Israel] are taken into the Savior's genealogy, but rather such as Scripture has condemned, that he who came for sinners being born of sinners might so put away the sins of all" (cit. in Aquinas 19–20). The two other mentions of Rahab in the Christian Testament do not concern her place in Jesus' family tree. Instead, she embodies a distinctive virtue—different in each case. For the author of Hebrews, she is a witness to faith; in the Epistle of James, a doer of good deeds—a heroine at once of faith and works. The Church Fathers developed their version of Rahab against this rich and varied background of Scriptural text. Her identity as a former prostitute was embraced as a sign that given repentance, all could be forgiven. According to Jerome, "She...

Counting blessings in early adolescents: An experimental study of gratitude and subjective well-being

The development and manifestation of gratitude in youth is unclear. We examined the effects of a grateful outlook on subjective well-being and other outcomes of positive psychological functioning in 221 early adolescents. Eleven classes were randomly assigned to either a gratitude, hassles, or control condition. Results indicated that counting blessings was associated with enhanced self-reported gratitude, optimism, life satisfaction, and decreased negative affect. Feeling grateful in response to aid mediated the relationship between experimental condition and general gratitude at the 3-week follow-up. The most significant finding was the robust relationship between gratitude and satisfaction with school experience at both the immediate post-test and 3-week follow-up. Counting blessings seems to be an effective intervention for well-being enhancement in early adolescents.

No Moral Nukes

One hardly needs initiation into the dark mysteries of nuclear physics to contribute usefully to the debate now widely raging over nuclear power. While many important empirical questions are still unresolved, these do not really lie at the center of the controversy. Instead, it is debate about values. Survey research shows that, both among experts and the public at large, the disagreement between advocates and opponents of nuclear energy is less over what the costs and benefits are than over which are worth pursuing.' Philosophers need make no apologies upon joining such issues. In any case, philosophers are unduly shy of empirical questions. Far better, surely, to address genuine policy issues in genuine way rather than resort to desert island examples disingenuously assuming away all the complexities that combined to make the issues problematic in the first place. Philosophers, it is often said, have no special expertise in resolving empirical questions. Neither, I would add, do they suffer any special disabilities, save those which are self-imposed. We are usually * I had much help turning up these materials. Presumably, specific acknowledgment would not always be kindness, so I simply note my general gratitude to all those in universities and the public and private sectors of several nations who shared insights and materials with me. I am particularly indebted to David Pearce for comments on the review itself. Responsibility is, of course, mine alone. 1. Otway and Fishbein (1976), analyzing survey responses of American energy experts, find that advocates and opponents of nuclear technology display no significant differences as regards perceived risks-they differ only in their perceptions of its whether or not nuclear power would contribute to that infamous intangible, the quality of life. From survey of the general public in Austria and America, Otway, Maurer, and Thomas (1978) similarly conclude that advocates of nuclear power are basically committed to pursuing economic and technological benefits, whereas opponents fundamentally resist psychological risks associated with technology-out-of-control. These findings lead them to conclude that nuclear power is basically life-style issue, judgment in which Pearce, Edwards, and Beuret (1979) concur. Duncan (1978, p. 19) similarly perceives a steady evolution in which problems are initially defined as scientific and technical, later as economic, and still later ... as intrinsically social and political. In the beginning of the Atomic Age, sociologists' pronouncements on atomic energy were mostly paraphrases of discussions by physical scientists. Now we are seeing ad hoc sociology-such as Weinberg's (1972b) famous essay on social institutions-being generated by the technical experts. If that kind of social science is not good enough, sociologists should know what to do about it. So, too, should philosophers.