What is gratitude without a benefactor? A daily diary approach

ABSTRACT

“Gratitude” has multiple meanings. One distinction is between gratitude with and without a benefactor. This paper presents two daily diary studies examining the experience of gratitude without a benefactor. In the first, some participants wrote each day about something good caused by someone else whereas others wrote about something good caused neither by self nor other. In the second, all participants wrote each day about something good caused neither by self nor other. Both studies included a novel measure of gratitude designed to distinguish gratitude with and without a benefactor. Across both studies, participants reported feeling gratitude even without a benefactor, and the novel measure of gratitude predicted daily gratitude even after controlling for other gratitude measures. In study 2, participants reported that benefactorless gratitude made them feel the motivational goals of being more obligated, spiritual, resourceful, indebted, generous, celebratory and wanting to help someone else, even after controlling for joy. Some analyses suggest that gratitude with a benefactor is particularly associated with obligation. For instance, in study 1, daily gratitude with a benefactor was more related to obligation than gratitude without a benefactor. These studies suggest that distinctions between gratitude with versus without a benefactor warrant continued exploration.

KEYWORDS:

• Gratitude
• emotion
• positive psychology

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Amanda Brown, Courtney Forbes, Greta Frain, Kate Gunthert, Joanna Holmes, Jennifer Kane, Ellen Leoni, Laura Myhr, Cara Moody, Alison Muckle, Cathy Phillips, Lori Burns Rafferty, Leah Rothschild, Melissa Warren and Lia West for their assistance in various aspects of this project, and to Carolien Rieffe and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on a previous draft of this paper. We also thank Dr. Helene Fung and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this manuscript.

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.