Lecture 8: Perspective-Taking, Gratitude, and Forgiveness PDF

Lecture 8 Chapter 11: Perspective-Taking - Gratitude and Forgiveness VIGNASH THARMARATNAM Why Does Perspective-Taking Matter?  Gratitude: process of acknowledging the contributions of others and the ways those contributions have bettered our lives  When we feel thankful, apprecia...

Lecture 8 Chapter 11: Perspective-Taking - Gratitude and Forgiveness VIGNASH THARMARATNAM Why Does Perspective-Taking Matter?  Gratitude: process of acknowledging the contributions of others and the ways those contributions have bettered our lives  When we feel thankful, appreciative, and at times, indebted to another  Forgiveness: process of letting go of negative emotions, including anger, resentment, and hurt, when someone has wronged us  Tend to feel that a weight has been lifted, but we might also feel vulnerable to being hurt again Why Does Perspective-Taking Matter?  Differences in when we engage in these behaviours  Gratitude - when someone has improved our lives  Forgiveness - when someone has made our lives harder  Both are similar in that they require perspective taking: being able to perceive, understand, and even inhabit the experiences of someone outside of ourselves Why Does Perspective-Taking Matter?  Reasonsfor the importance of perspective taking:  1.Allows for understanding of situations through others, without having to directly experience it ourselves Expands our understanding of the world through others  E.g. Understanding narration in books, watching a movie, or listening to a story transports you into someone else’s world Why Does Perspective-Taking Matter?  2. Helps to build, nurture, and maintain important relationships  Optimally functioning people tend to have solid social support systems, that are facilitated by perspective taking  When you can understand someone else’s perspective, even if you disagree with it or find it foreign, you can be closer to that person  Expressing gratitude and forgiveness to others makes one feel more seen, appreciated, and respected (Algoe et al., 2008) Why Does Perspective-Taking Matter?  3.Associated with experiences of eudaimonic well-being (Disabato et al., 2017) Provides individuals with a sense of purpose and meaning Both gratitude and forgiveness involves incorporating the roles and experiences of others to make meaning of situations Why Does Perspective-Taking Matter?  Perspective taking requires holding different pieces of information simultaneously and constructing a reasonable narrative from them E.g. forgiving a friend involves combining the emotional experiences and thoughts about the event, your personal values, and past history with the individual Gratitude  Cicero (106–43 BC) said that “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others”  Believedbeing grateful for one’s circumstances gave rise to other virtues, such as kindness, humility, patience, and forgiveness Humility – “I am not the cause of all the goodness in my life” Kindness – “People have been kind to me, and I will be kind to others” Gratitude  Two ways to define the scope of gratitude an individual feels:  1. As a stable long-lasting trait  Tendency to easily experience appreciation, be aware of life’s abundance, and acknowledge the good in one’s life across a broad range of circumstances  2. As a transient emotional experience  Where people typically report how grateful or thankful or appreciative they feel in the moment  Distinct from the experience of indebtedness (Watkins et al., 2007) Gratitude  Gratitude is linked to measures of both subjective/hedonic well-being (Watkins & Scheibe, 2017) and psychological/ eudaimonic well-being (Ma ̆irean et al., 2019)  Associated with better health outcomes (Corona et al., 2019) such as:  ↓ reports of loneliness, perceived stress, and depressive symptoms  ↑ reports of subjective health, self-esteem, and positive affect Gratitude  Alkozei et al. (2018) proposed 2 models to explain the associations between gratitude and well-being  1. The cognitive model; 2. The psychosocial model Gratitude  In the cognitive model of gratitude, gratitude is conceptualized as ↑ conscious awareness of the good experiences and possessions  Leads to positive bias when they attend to, interpret, and remember events in their lives  Inturn, these positive biases → neural and physiological changes → ↑ well- being and physical health Gratitude  Wood and colleagues (2008) found that gratitude was associated with positive interpretations of receiving help  Participantsread a series of vignettes in which a person was the recipient of helpful behaviors  E.g. being offered help with coursework from a classmate, receiving a letter of recommendation from a professor, or getting help from a stranger in the grocery store Gratitude  Participants who reported having higher levels of trait gratitude were more likely to: Perceive the helpful action as valuable Perceive the helpful action as costly to the other person Be more altruistically intended Gratitude  In a second study, Wood and colleagues (2008) had participants had described times when someone did something for them for 2 weeks  E.g. when someone lent them money or offered them a ride  Then they completed ratings to provide information about how they perceived the events  Found that both trait gratitude and state gratitude on the reporting day positively predicted the degree participants rated events as valuable and genuinely helpful Gratitude Grateful people tend to remember the past more positively Trait gratitude is associated with more positive memories of the past and less regret about events of the past (Zhang, 2020) Gratitude  Zimbardo and Boyd (1999) found that people with ↑ levels of gratitude were more likely to:  Strongly endorse statements such as “there is much more good than bad to recall in my past”  Less likely to endorse “I often think about what I should have done differently in my life”  Having this positivity bias to remembering led to increased happiness and life satisfaction for individuals Gratitude  Cognitive model also explain the relationship between gratitude and well- being is through better health behaviors  Gratitude is related to better sleep outcomes, even after accounting for other strong predictors of poor sleep quality such as neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness (Wood et al., 2009).  Sleep duration, subjective sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, and time to fall asleep were all explained by more positive pre-sleep cognitions (i.e. thinking about positive vs. negative events) Gratitude  Alkozeiand colleagues’ (2018) psychosocial model suggests that the relation between gratitude and well-being is explained by social variables and interpersonal relationships  Gratitude rests on the acknowledgment that others have been instrumental in the good things that occur in life (Emmons & Stern, 2013) Gratitude  Gratitude leads to ↑ prosocial behavior and social support  In turn, leads to ↑ relationship quality → ↑ psychological well- being and physical health → ↑ gratitude Feedback ↑ gratitude is consistent with Fredrickson’s (2001) broaden and build theory of positive emotions Gratitude  Gratitudebeing strongly associated with social support could also be explained by the cognitive model (Lin & Yeh, 2014)  Those with ↑ levels of trait gratitude makes individual perceive ↑ social support, even when they objectively have access to the same amount as others Gratitude  However, in a review by McCollough and colleagues (2001) concluded that people are also likely to engage in prosocial behaviours after receiving expressions of gratitude  E.g. Thanking participants for their contributions in some way made them more likely to help the person who had thanked them as well as other people unrelated to the exchange  Suggests not just perceiving more social support by being grateful, but actually receiving it Gratitude  Grant and Gino (2010) had participants give feedback on a cover letter for a job application and were asked to email their feedback to an experimenter  2 conditions:  Control condition: received email confirming receipt of the feedback and asking if the participants were willing to provide feedback on a second cover letter  Gratitude condition: received the exact same email but added: “Thank you so much! I am really grateful.” Gratitude Participants in the gratitude (vs. control) condition were twice as willing (66% vs. 32%) to review the cover letter Also more likely to help someone other than the person expressing gratitude Gratitude A review by Algoe (2012) reveals a strong association between gratitude and the quality/satisfaction with one’s important interpersonal relationships Gratitude  E.g. Leong and colleagues (2020) found that couples from Hong Kong who had been together for at least 6 months had 2 ways in which each partner’s trait gratitude was significantly related to relationship satisfaction  1. Predicted that person’s grateful mood/feelings, which then predicted their marriage satisfaction  2. Predicted that person’s perceptions of their spouses’ grateful moods, which then predicted their marriage satisfaction Gratitude  Expressions of gratitude are also related to better functioning in less intimate relationships  Williams and Bartlett (2015) had college students were recruited to serve as mentors for college-bound high school seniors  Infirst session, spent approximately 15 minutes providing feedback on a student’s writing sample  At a second session a week later, participants received handwritten notes from the high school students, either with or without a few extra lines expressing gratitude for the feedback Gratitude  Participants then completed questionnaires to report on their experiences mentoring and their perceptions of their mentees  Those in the gratitude (vs. control) condition rated A) Their mentees as more appreciative B)Their mentees as interpersonally warmer Gratitude  Thosein the gratitude (vs. control) condition also indicated more desire to get to know their mentees  When asked after the second session if they were willing to write note back to mentees:  Participantsin the gratitude condition were more willing to add their contact info  Participants in the control condition contained all individuals that chose to forgo writing the note Gratitude  Algoe and Haidt (2009) asked participants to recall and write about a time in which they experienced 1 of 4 other-praising emotions: gratitude, joy, elevation, or admiration  When feeling gratitude (vs. joy, admiration, or elevation), were significantly more motivated to acknowledge others and even offer repayment/reward Gratitude  Actsas mechanism to ultimately strengthen relationships  E.g.expressing gratitude with more other-praising behaviors/language to romantic partners leads to individuals being perceived as more responsive, and their partners feeling better showing more affection (Algoe et al., 2016) Gratitude  Thewitnessing effect: those who witness an expresser’s statement of gratitude to a benefactor tend to:  A) Be more helpful to the grateful person  B) Disclose more to the grateful person  C)Want to affiliate more with both the grateful person and the benefactor Circumstances That Facilitate or Suppress Gratitude  Genes can influence someone’s dispositional levels of gratitude  Ina twin study of Values in Action (VIA) character strengths (average age: 49 years), cumulative genetic effects accounted for 14–59% of the variance in each of the 24 character strengths (Steger et al., 2007)  Gratitude – 40% genetic influences, 60% environmental influences Circumstances That Facilitate or Suppress Gratitude  Genetics influences how oxytocin is processed, affecting trait gratitude  Oxytocin is a hormone involved in creating and maintaining social bonds in animals, including humans  Gene CD38 variants alter oxytocin secretion and regulation (Algoe & Way, 2014)  Those with the more (vs. less) grateful gene variant directly expressed gratitude to their romantic partners on 70 % (vs. 45%) of the days surveyed Circumstances That Facilitate or Suppress Gratitude  Neural differences also explain differences in trait gratitude  Zahn and colleagues (2014) had participants under fMRI read descriptions of either themselves or their best friend doing something generous or stingy  Intended to feel gratitude when best friends did something generous for them  Participants who were the most likely to experience gratitude had more gray-matter volume in the right posterior inferior temporal region  Area linked to social cognition Circumstances That Facilitate or Suppress Gratitude  Certain properties of gratitude-eliciting situations alter the probability of experiencing/expressing gratitude  A)More likely to experience gratitude when they perceive that they benefit from something over which they do not have control (Rusk et al., 2016)  More likely to experience gratitude when they consider that the current beneficial circumstances of their lives were not fated to happen that way Circumstances That Facilitate or Suppress Gratitude  Koo and colleagues (2008) asked participants to think about something in their life for which they were grateful  Assigned to 1 of 2 conditions:  Think about the ways that event became part of their lives and was unsurprising  Think about the ways in which the event might never have happened and was surprising  E.g. how your parents happened to become friends with people in your town, which led you to go to school with your parents’ friends children and become friends Circumstances That Facilitate or Suppress Gratitude Participants who were assigned to think of the events of their lives as surprising (vs. unsurprising) reported experiencing more gratitude for the events Circumstances That Facilitate or Suppress Gratitude  B)Having less expectations around events causes people to feel more grateful  E.g. If you are living with your parents, may not be grateful for all that they do since you have an expectation built over time Ifyou move out and then come back to visit, you likely feel more grateful for the same actions Circumstances That Facilitate or Suppress Gratitude  C) Feel more grateful when someone does something responsive to our wants or needs, especially when it is costly to them  Algoe et al. (2008) examined predictors of gratitude in college sorority women when established members of the sorority (Big Sisters) anonymously gave gifts to the soon- to-be initiated members (Little Sisters) Circumstances That Facilitate or Suppress Gratitude  Little Sisters’ gratitude was predicted by:  The degree to which the Little Sister perceived that the Big Sister had put effort into the gift  The degree to which the Little Sister perceived the gift was costly to the Big Sister  The degree to which the gift was both surprising and responsive (i.e., specifically relevant to that person)  Little Sisters’ gratitude predicted her integration into the group and closeness with the Big Sister a month later Gratitude Interventions  Most research on gratitude interventions uses 1 of 2 methodologies for increasing gratitude:  1. The 3 Good Things/Counting Blessings intervention  Writedown 3 (or sometimes up to 5) good things or blessings that occurred throughout the day every day for about 2 (or up to 10) weeks  Can be small, such as “I heard a bird singing on my walk to class,” to big, such as “I got into law school.”  Can also be done as a gratitude journal, expanding on descriptions of the 3 good things that happened each day Gratitude Interventions  By turning one’s attention toward good things that happens throughout the day, and then consolidating these memories by writing them down, we work against our natural bias toward noticing threatening information  Takes time to see effects or recording 3 good things  Seligman and colleagues (2005) found that there was significant increases in happiness compared to placebo group at 1 month, 3 months and 6 months after the intervention  No differences in happiness immediately after or 1 week after intervention Gratitude Interventions  2. Gratitude letter/gratitude visit Participants identify a person for whom they feel unexpressed gratitude and appreciation E.g. family member, friend, colleague, teacher, coach, religious leader etc. Gratitude Interventions  Participant writes a letter describing specific things that the person did and the ways in which the things affected the trajectory of the participant’s life  Should include as many details as possible, both about what the person did for the participant and how those actions affected them Gratitude Interventions  Participants can either choose to keep the letter or send it to the recipient (either via email reading it over the phone)  Seligman and colleagues (2005) found that participants who completed a gratitude visit in which they read their letter to the recipient experienced large ↑ in happiness that lasted a month after the intervention (vs. placebo)  E.g.writing about childhood memories every night Gratitude Interventions In a systematic review, Wood and colleagues (2010) found that gratitude interventions tended to improve participants’ well- being, even though the interventions tended to be relatively short Gratitude Interventions Davis and colleagues (2016) later on in their review compared participants that engaged in 1 of 3 conditions: A) Gratitude intervention Gratitude Interventions  B) Active control, involving evaluating changes to gratitude and psychological well- being either after:  Matching activity condition – e.g. recounting the events of a day  Psychologically active condition- e.g. engaging in acts of kindness  C) Assessment-only: completing assessments of gratitude and psychological well-being, but did not complete any other activities Gratitude Interventions  Found that gratitude interventions ↑ psychological well-being more than active control and assessment-only conditions However, the effect size for the comparison of gratitude interventions vs. active controls was relatively weak Gratitude Interventions  Counterintuitively found that gratitude interventions ↑ gratitude more than alternative control activities, but not more than assessment only  Suggest that gratitude interventions only result in improved gratitude when compared to tracking some other behavior, and not in general Gratitude Interventions  The findings from these reviews provided support that gratitude interventions were evidence-based ways to increase gratitude, well-being, and the quality of one’s interpersonal relationships while simultaneously reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety  However, both Wood et al. (2010) and Davis et al. (2016) cautioned 2 potential limitations with these findings Gratitude Interventions  1. Gratitude interventions showed the strongest results when compared to an assessment-only condition or a conditions that decrease well-being  E.g.in several of the three good things or gratitude journaling trials, the control condition involved listing or writing about daily hassles (Emmons & McCollough, 2003)  impossible to tell whether gratitude interventions improve well-being or a focus on daily hassles decreases it Gratitude Interventions  2.Can’t tell whether gratitude interventions increase positive emotion generally as opposed to gratitude specifically Could be that any intervention that increases any positive emotion also increases well- being Gratitude Interventions  To rule out this particular possibility, Watkins and colleagues (2015) told participants that they were going to engage in daily behaviors that had been shown to increase well-being  Were then randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions:  A)Memory placebo condition: asked to recount a specific memory each day (e.g. retracing their route to school)  To control for attention and time paid in the experiment Gratitude Interventions  B) Pride blessings condition: asked to recall “three things that went well” in the previous 48 hours, and then write about how those events made them feel that they are “better than most or better than average”  C) Gratitude blessings condition: Asked to recall “three things that went well” in the previous 48 hours and then write about how that experience made them “feel grateful” Gratitude Interventions After 1 week of the intervention, participants in the gratitude blessings condition had greater ↑ in well-being than participants in either of the other two conditions Why Is It So Hard to Express Gratitude?  Kaczmarekand colleagues (2015) had American college students either: Write a gratitude letter once a week for 3 weeks and send the letters to the intended recipients Complete a gratitude journal entry describing five things for which they were grateful once a week for 3 weeks Why Is It So Hard to Express Gratitude?  Found only 5.6% of the participants actually completed the interventions in full  More likely to initiate gratitude journaling than writing the gratitude letter  Participants in both conditions rated the interventions as normative (e.g. a good thing to do) and effective  However, they perceived the gratitude visit to be more difficult than journaling  Thought they would be less able to make the visit than write in the gratitude journal Why Is It So Hard to Express Gratitude? Participantswith higher (vs. lower) dispositional gratitude were: More likely to initiate both gratitude interventions Believed the interventions would be easier, more beneficial, and more socially accepted Why Is It So Hard to Express Gratitude?  Kumar and Epley (2018) proposed that people make two mistakes when considering the effects of expressing gratitude to others  1.Assume that the other person already knows that their actions are meaningful and appreciated Potential gratitude expresser underestimates how surprising it would be to receive an expression of gratitude  2.May believe that the exchange will be awkward Why Is It So Hard to Express Gratitude?  Kumar and Epley (2018) asked participants to write gratitude letters to someone “who had touched their life in a meaningful way”  Then asked for permission to send the letter to the recipients and to ask the recipients some questions about the letter  Also rated how surprised they thought the recipient would be to get the letter, how surprised the recipient might be about the content of the letter, as well as how positive and how awkward the recipient might feel when reading the letter  Then completed survey to assess effects of mood and well- being from writing the letter Why Is It So Hard to Express Gratitude?  Writing the gratitude letters resulted in improvements in mood  Participants tended to underestimate how positively recipients would feel and overestimate how awkward they would feel after reading the letter  Furthermore, those who anticipated that the recipients would feel awkward and not particularly positive were less likely to engage in expressions of gratitude Forgiveness  Forgiveness: process of reducing negative emotions, thoughts, and motivations toward a person who has caused you harm or transgressed against you in some way  Unforgiveness: tendency to hold onto or nurture resentment-based thoughts, emotions, motivations, and behaviors toward someone who has wronged you  Can take the form of grudge-holding or revenge orientation Forgiveness  Unlike many other positive psychology constructs, forgiveness and forgiveness interventions may function primarily through ↓ negative affect, thoughts, and motivations (as opposed to ↑ positive affect, thoughts, and motivations; Harris & Thorensen, 2005)  Forgiveness can be directed toward:  A transgressor (e.g. forgiving indiscretions by a romantic partner)  The self (e.g., forgiving oneself for a moral failing)  Inanimate entities (e.g., forgiving a business, government, or religious organization) Forgiveness  Forgivenessis not condoning, pardoning, excusing, forgetting, or allowing hurtful behaviors/events to continue  Forgiveness doesn’t require an ongoing relationship with the transgressor  Forgiveness doesn’t require you to communicate your forgiveness to the transgressor What Forgiveness Is and Is Not  People often find it especially difficult separate forgiveness involves excusing the offending behavior due to the language used in those situations  E.g.Instead of saying “it’s ok” to say instead “I forgive you,” “I appreciate your apology,” and “I hear you” or even, “I appreciate your apology; I am going to need a little time with this before I get back to you” What Forgiveness Is and Is Not  Forgiveness is related to ↓ symptoms of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder as well as ↓ fear, hostility, and neuroticism (Griffin et al., 2015)  Self-forgiveness is also correlated with both physical and psychological health (e.g., Davis et al., 2015)  Higher dispositional forgiveness is associated with stronger social networks and higher relationship satisfaction (Riek & Mania, 2012) What Forgiveness Is and Is Not  Chi and colleagues (2018) interviewed adults who had experienced or were experiencing spousal infidelity  Found that those who perceived their partners were motivated for reconciliation  Made benign attributions for their partners’ infidelity  Experienced empathy toward their spouse  Experienced ↑ decisional forgiveness (i.e., decision to inhibit harmful intentions and engage in prosocial intentions)  In turn was associated with ↑ emotional forgiveness What Forgiveness Is and Is Not ↑ strength of the marital bond (i.e. marital satisfaction, commitment, affection) was also associated with ↑ emotional forgiveness Had ↓ negative affect and ↑ positive affect toward their partners following the transgression What Forgiveness Is and Is Not  Justiceand perceived justice play role in both the decision to forgive and emotional forgiveness Forgiveness is more likely to occur if the transgressor is held accountable for the offense and the injured person perceives that justice has been served What Forgiveness Is and Is Not  Injustice gap: difference between what the injured person would consider a fair and just resolution to the event and their perception of what actually happened to the transgressor  Large injustice gap - victim focuses on ↓ gap, rather than working through their emotional reactions and moving toward forgiveness What Forgiveness Is and Is Not  Davisand colleagues (2016) found independent of the severity and time since an offense occurred, the degree of perceived injustice gap predicts:  Avoidance motives (avoiding thoughts of/interactions with the perpetrator/event)  Revenge motives (thoughts of/interactions aimed to retaliate against perpetrator) Forgiveness Interventions  Two main types of forgiveness interventions 1. Enright’s Process Model of Interpersonal Forgiveness Has 4 phases that individuals go through to reduce negative affect and vengeance motives while simultaneously increasing positive affect Forgiveness Interventions  Phase 1:  A)Recognize/express their anger related to the event  B) Discover and name their psychological defenses in relation to the event  C) Evaluate the psychological harm the event caused E.g. identify and express any shame, anger, or distrust they continue to experience Forgiveness Interventions  Phase2: Consider what it would mean and be like to forgive the offense  Phase 3: Begin to commit to forgiveness  Work to accept the pain associated with the offense  Through perspective taking, attempt to generate empathy for and understanding of the offender Forgiveness Interventions  Phase 4: attempt to find meaning in the pain from the offense May think about the universal nature of pain and the ways in which this experience binds them to other humans May consider a time when forgiveness might have been granted to them, whether or not they asked for it Forgiveness Interventions  2. The REACH model  1. Recall the event in detail Asked to recollect the hurt and emotions associated with the event  2. Find Empathy for the offender Without condoning or excusing the behavior, participants try to understand the offender’s perspective and what contributed to the transgression Forgiveness Interventions  3.Engage in the Altruistic act of granting forgiveness to the offender Requires humility and the acknowledgment that we all engage in problematic behaviors  4. Commit to forgiving the offender  5. Hold onto this commitment, even when it is difficult to do so Forgiveness Interventions  Similarities between models:  1. Both ask participants to find empathy, which involves understanding the offender Rely on the ability and willingness to take the perspective of the person who has hurt you  2. Both are based on the presumption that holding onto anger, hurt, distrust, and other difficult emotions is extremely costly to the person who has been hurt Forgiveness Interventions  3. Both don’t conflate empathy with denying the damage that was caused or condoning or excusing the behavior  4. Both involve a decision to forgive  May be things that have happened that a given person doesn’t want to forgive  Interventions act as voluntary strategies for people looking to forgive and let go  Executive functioning (i.e., attentional control, behavior inhibition, decision making, and cognitive flexibility) is associated with forgiveness, especially for severe transgressions (Pronk et al., 2010) Forgiveness Interventions  Akhtar and Barlow’s meta-analysis (2018) found forgiveness interventions to lead to large ↓ in stress and distress, moderate ↓ in anger and hostility, and small ↓ in sadness compared to control conditions  But no effects on anxiety  Small ↑ in well-being Culture and Perspective-Taking To examine the development of gratitude in different societies, Mendonça and colleagues (2018) studied children aged 7–14 years in seven countries: Brazil, China, Guatemala, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, and US Culture and Perspective-Taking  Participants were asked what their greatest wish was and what they would do for the person who granted that wish  Responses to the second question were coded either as:  A) Verbal – e.g. saying thank you  B)Concrete – e.g. reciprocating the action without consideration of the person’s wishes  C)Connective – e.g. reciprocation that considers the person’s needs and wishes Culture and Perspective-Taking Type of Russia and Brazil and US China and Guatemala Gratitude Turkey South Korea Verbal 31-39% 33-46% 11-27% 70% Concrete 14% 24-34% 15-18% 11% Connective 52% 36-39% 57-70% 41%  Children from Russia and Turkey – highest for connective, followed by verbal and then concrete  Children from Brazil and the United States were relatively evenly distributed between the 3 forms of gratitude  Children from China and South Korea had relatively high rates of connective gratitude, with lower rates of concrete and verbal gratitude  Children from Guatemala had high rates of verbal gratitude, followed by connective, and then concrete Culture and Perspective-Taking  Although older children were less likely to express concrete gratitude, this was not true for children in China or Guatemala  OnlyBrazilian children tended to express more verbal gratitude as they got older  in all other samples, children expressed verbal gratitude with equal frequency across ages Culture and Perspective-Taking  Differences in how cultures express gratitude may arise because gratitude is associated with different outcomes in different cultures Asian American participants get less of an improvement to physiological well- being from expressing gratitude than their European American counterparts (Boehm et al., 2011) Culture and Perspective-Taking  Titova and colleagues (2017) found that Indian participants living in India who engaged in gratitude practices reported an increase in both positive and negative affect (particularly guilt and sadness)  Indian participants reported experiencing a sense of guilt and indebtedness related to taking from others and not adequately repaying the kindness of others  In contrast, European American participants living in the United States only reported an increase in positive affect Culture and Perspective-Taking  Effectsof gratitude expressions on those receiving gratitude may also differ between cultures Zhang and colleagues (2018) compared the experience of receiving gratitude in Chinese undergraduate students in China and European-Canadian students in Canada Culture and Perspective-Taking  Both groups reported more positive feelings when receiving thanks  However, the Chinese students felt both negative and positive feelings in response to gratitude  Chinese students also anticipated that close others would experience more negative feelings after receiving thanks compared to the Canadian students  Canadian students reported more negative feelings when not receiving thanks from a close other after providing help than did the Chinese students