This paper presents a new model of gratitude incorporating not only the gratitude that arises following help from others but also a habitual focusing on and appreciating the positive aspects of life", incorporating not only the gratitude that arises following help from others, but also a habitual focusing on and appreciating the positive aspects of life. Research into individual differences in gratitude and well-being is reviewed, including gratitude and psychopathology, personality, relationships, health, subjective and eudemonic well-being, and humanistically orientated functioning. Gratitude is strongly related to well-being, however defined, and this link may be unique and causal. Interventions to clinically increase gratitude are critically reviewed, and concluded to be promising, although the positive psychology literature may have neglected current limitations, and a distinct research strategy is suggested. Finally, mechanisms whereby gratitude may relate to well-being are discussed, including schematic biases, coping, positive affect, and broaden-and-build principles. Gratitude is relevant to clinical psychology due to (a) strong explanatory power in understanding well-being, and (b) the potential of improving well-being through fostering gratitude with simple exercises.
This research paper was originally posted by the Greater Good Science Center & The Science of Happiness.
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We suggest that at the dispositional level, gratitude is part of a wider life orientation towards noticing and appreciating the positive in the world. This life orientation should be distinct from other emotions such as optimism, hope, and trust. Whilst these may involve life orientations, these would not characteristically be towards noticing and appreciating the positive in life, with, for example, optimism representing a life orientation towards expecting future outcomes (Carver et al., this issue), and hope incorporating this focus as well as tendency to see the pathways through which these positive outcomes can be reached.
At the dispositional level, gratitude is part of a wider life orientation towards noticing and appreciating the positive in the world.
~ WOOD - FROH - GERAGHTY
The life orientation view of gratitude suggests that each of these conceptions is an indicator of a higher order gratitude factor, implying that the grateful personality involves each of these aspects. Thus if a person is grateful, they will generally experience each of the eight ways of viewing and interacting with the world. If these aspects were genuinely an indicator of a single personality trait then, in general, if a person is high on one aspect they should also be high on others.
Top Trends in Gratitude
If gratitude is a life orientation towards the positive, then it should have a wide range of adaptive correlates. Research into the individual differences in gratitude has largely focused on four areas, (a) relationships to other personality traits, (b) various indicators of well-being, (c) social relationships and socially facilitative behavior, and (d) physical health. Research in to these four areas has led to a consistent picture of gratitude being important for well-being, broadly defined.
Well-being can be defined through (a) psychopathology, (b) general emotional functioning, (c) existential functioning, or (d) humanistic conceptions (see Joseph & Wood, this issue). As gratitude is robustly associated with each of these conceptions of well-being.
Emotional functioning is conceptualized within the construct of subjective well-being, which comprises high positive affect, low negative affect, and high satisfaction with life (Joseph & Wood, this issue). 12 studies have supported the link between gratitude and subjective well-being. This is consistent with survey results suggesting that over 90% of American teens and adults indicated that expressing gratitude made them “extremely happy” or “somewhat happy” (Gallup, 1999). Gratitude appears robustly related to mood and life satisfaction.
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