Reciprocal relationships between State gratitude and high- and low-arousal positive affects in daily life: A time-lagged ecological assessment study

ABSTRACT

This study assessed whether state gratitude and high and low-arousal positive affect show reciprocal relationships in daily life, and whether these relationships are dependent of inter-individual differences in positive mental health or psychopathology. 106 participants reported on momentary gratitude and positive affects throughout 7 consecutive days, using the Experience Sampling Method. Multilevel time-lagged regression analyses showed that state gratitude, cheerfulness and satisfaction reciprocally predict one another from one moment to the next. The strength of the prospective relationships between state gratitude(t-1) and both cheerfulness(t) and satisfaction(t) did not vary as a function of inter-individual differences in positive mental health or psychopathology. However, the prospective effects of both cheerfulness(t-1) and satisfaction(t-1) on state gratitude(t) were significantly stronger for individuals with low vs. high levels of psychopathology. In addition, the prospective effect of cheerfulness(t-1) on state gratitude(t) was significantly stronger for those with high vs. low positive mental health.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecological Momentary Assessment
• ESM
• diary
• grateful
• active affect
• deactive affect
• psychopathology
• positive mental health
• flourishing
• depression

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to Alie de Boer, Yvette Hooijman, Marleen Donk, Margo Varwijk, and Gerdien Noltes for their assistance in collecting the ESM data for this research.

Declaration of interest

The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.