Gratitude, Social Cognition, and Well-Being in Emerging Adolescents

Abstract

The authors explored Canadian emerging adolescents' social and moral reasoning skills (empathy, theory of mind), and their perceptions of gratitude, self-competencies, and well-being (spiritual, emotional). As part of a larger five-year longitudinal study, the authors describe results of Year 2 (2016–2017) data from 46 ninth-grade students (33 girls; M_age = 13.5 years, SD = 5.436 years) from eight schools (Ontario, Canada). Students’ perceptions of gratitude, spirituality, self-compassion, competencies, and well-being were measured by self-report questionnaires. Significant positive correlations were found among adolescents’ perceptions of gratitude, self-competencies, and emotional and spiritual well-being. Differently valenced patterns of associations were found among students’ perceptions of gratitude (appreciation for others and sense of abundance), self-compassion, and existential well-being, and spiritual comfort, and omnipresence. Simple appreciation was the only aspect of gratitude to show significant positive relations with religious well-being. Significant positive correlations were found between gratitude (sense of abundance) and self-compassion, whereas significant negative correlations were found between self-compassion and empathy, theory of mind, existential well-being, and religious well-being. Implications for theory and educational applications are discussed.

Keywords:

• Adolescents
• gratitude
• self-esteem
• compassion
• spirituality

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Malak Askar, Emily Eichner, Kendra Marotta, and Shanen Smith for their help with data collection and coding. Portions of this research were presented in April, 2018 at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Adolescence, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada with grant no. 435-2015-0010 awarded to Sandra Bosacki and Victoria Talwar.