Positive Psy L4 Gratitude PDF Lecture Notes

LECTURE 4 Gratitude Gratitude and well-being 1. Gratitude: What and Why? 2. Inducing Gratitude 3. In what ways gratitude helps to enhance well-being? Gratitude: What and Why? What is gratitude? ● underlies the appreciation of goodness in others and in oneself (Klein, 1957) ● a passion or sentiment t...

LECTURE 4 Gratitude Gratitude and well-being 1. Gratitude: What and Why? 2. Inducing Gratitude 3. In what ways gratitude helps to enhance well-being? Gratitude: What and Why? What is gratitude? ● underlies the appreciation of goodness in others and in oneself (Klein, 1957) ● a passion or sentiment that motivates us to reward others for the good things they have done for us (Smith, 1976) ● include not only a warm sense of appreciation for something or somebody but also a sense of goodwill towards that thing or person and a resultant disposition to act positively because of appreciation and goodwill. (Fitzgerald, 1998) ● a positive emotional reaction in response to the receipt of a gift or benefit from someone (Emmons & McCullough, 2004) ● is the appreciation of what is valuable and meaningful to oneself; it is a general state of thankfulness and appreciation (Sansone & Sansone, 2010) Trait Gratitude ● Trait gratitude is individual differences in the average rate with which gratitude as an emotion is experienced on a daily basis. ○ High in gratitude ■ A lower threshold for experiencing gratefulness ■ A propensity to dwell on the favorable State Gratitude ● An affect that occurs after a person has been helped and that motivates the reciprocation of aid. ○ State: temporary affects or longer duration moods, which may have associated thought and action tendencies. ○ Higher trait levels of gratitude are related to more frequent and intense experiences of state gratitude in daily life. When do we feel grateful? ● Common sources of gratitude ○ Perceive that the helping behavior ■ Costly/ Valuable/ Altruistic(無私心的) Benefits of Gratitude ● Gratitude and well-being ○ Impact most effective psychological and spiritual practices for enhancing overall well-being ■ Emmons (2013) reported that gratitude has one of the strongest connections to wellbeing and life satisfaction even when compared to other positive virtues, including optimism or compassion. ● Gratitude Promotes Physical Health ○ Reduced stress, and subsequently reduced the bodily complaints ○ Increased physical exercises ○ Increased sleep duration and quality ○ Lower blood pressure ● Gratitude Promotes Hedonic Well-being ○ Positively correlated with life satisfaction/ positive affect ○ Negatively related to negative affect ● Gratitude Promotes Prosocial(樂於助人) Behaviours ○ Helping someone with a personal problem or offering emotional support to another ■ Directed back to the giver, other individuals, and/or the larger community ● Gratitude Promotes Positive Relationships ○ Ogolsky et al. (2017) reported that gratitude contribute to relationship maintenance, marital happiness, and relationship satisfaction ■ Proactive voicing of relational concerns ■ Enhanced level of forgiveness and patience Can gratitude be induced? Three general methods of gratitude induction: ● Gratitude lists ● Behavioral expressions of gratitude ● Grateful contemplation(默觀) Gratitude lists ● To think and list up to five things in life that they are grateful for by the end of each week ● Think back over the past week and write down on the lines below up to five things in your life that you are grateful or thankful for ○ Results ■ Rated their lives more favorably ■ Fewer illness symptoms ■ Spend more time exercising ● Gratitude Lists among Older Adults ○ Gratitude diaries - Killen and Macaskill (2015) ■ Record positive three events/ Why they viewed them positively ■ Cost-effective method of producing beneficial improvements in wellbeing for older adults ● Instagram to cultivate gratitude? ○ Reported higher levels of gratitude ○ No significant difference was observed for post measured stress and life satisfaction ○ Instagram is a promising method to increase gratitude among young adults. Behavioral expressions of gratitude ● Write a gratitude letter and pay a gratitude visit ○ more happiness and less depression at post-test and 1 month later ● Write a gratitude letter and Read the letter to the recipient face-to-face or by virtual contact ○ Participants experience improve in all three approaches to happiness (meaning, pleasure, and engagement) Gratitude Contemplation ● Think about something that they are grateful for ○ Gratitude group reported less negative emotion and lower levels of stress and depression ○ No significant differences on happiness and life satisfaction In what ways gratitude helps to enhance well-being? Mechanisms Linking Gratitude to Well-being ● Schematic hypothesis: Grateful people takes a positive interpretation of others behavior ○ Upon receiving help, people differ from the appraising prosocial situations on ■ The value of the help ■ How much it cost the benefactor to provide the help ■ To what extent the benefactor genuinely wanted to help them (altruistic motive; as opposed to having ulterior motives) ○ Grateful people go around in life with a particular interpretive lens, seeing help as more costly, valuable, and altruistic. ■ ● ● Equally, ungrateful people will view the help they see as lower on these dimensions. ○ For example, a person receiving a lift to an airport ■ Grateful person ● This saves them vast amounts of time (high value) ● Takes their benefactor hours to complete (high cost) ● Which their benefactor simply does to help them out (high altruism) ■ Ungrateful person ● Did not really need anyone else's help (low value) ● Their benefactor had nothing better to do anyway (low cost) ● Their benefactor only wanted to prove he was better than them by being able to provide the lift (low altruism) ○ The schematic hypothesis explains why people who have higher trait gratitude also tend to have higher state gratitude, may Then help to develop various resources, thus influencing well-being. Coping hypothesis: Grateful people uses effective coping ○ Three broad categories of coping ■ #1: Seeking out and use both instrumental and emotional social support. ■ #2: Positively reinterpret problems (e.g. as potential for growth) and actively cope with the problems ■ #3: Using less unhealthy coping, e.g. behaviorally disengage, deny the problem exists, or escape through maladaptive substance and use Broaden-and Build hypothesis: ○ Gratitude as a form of positive emotions ○ Broaden people’s modes of thinking as they creatively consider a wide array of actions that might benefit others ○ Most typically act prosocially simply to express their gratitude, over time the actions inspired by gratitude build and strengthen social bonds and friendships