The Grateful Disposition: Links to Patterns of Attribution for Positive Events. Sharon L. Brion. Michael E. McCullough. Southern Methodist University

Transcription

1 The Grateful Disposition: Links to Patterns of Attribution for Positive Events. Sharon L. Brion Michael E. McCullough Southern Methodist University

2 Abstract In this study, we explored the relationship between two measures of gratitude and several dimensions of causal attribution in ten positive situations. We found that grateful people attributed positive situations to causes that were more stable and global and rated the positive outcome to be more important than their less grateful counterparts. We separated the ten overall positive situations into two categories: six everyday situations and four existential situations. The effects disappeared across the everyday situations. The findings were similar, but more robust, across the existential situations.

3 Introduction According to theory, people who exhibit gratitude as a disposition attribute their successes to other moral agents; however, it is unclear whether grateful people differ from less grateful people in other dimensions of attributional style. We investigated the relationship between the grateful disposition and attributional style in ten positive situations. We hypothesized that a dispositionally grateful person would be more likely to attribute positive personal outcomes to more stable, global, and intentional forces (parents, hard work, a higher power) rather than unstable, specific, and unintentional causes (winning the lottery, luck).

4 Method Participants Participants were 112 students (84 females, 27 males, 1 unrecorded) enrolled in an undergraduate health psychology class at Southern Methodist University (age range = 18-44, M = 20.54). Participants received course credit for their participation. Self-Reported Measures of Gratitude GQ-6. We administered a six-item gratitude scale to determine each subject s general tendency to experience gratitude. On a seven-point Likert-type scale (where 1 = strongly disagree, and 7 = strongly agree), participants rated their tendencies to experience gratitude. This measure included questions such as I have so much in life to be grateful for and Long amounts of time can go

5 by before I feel grateful to something or someone. Gratitude Adjectives. Participants used a fivepoint Likert-type scale (where 1 = very slightly or not at all and 5 = extremely) to indicate how well each of the three gratitude related adjectives ( grateful, thankful and appreciative ) describes how they generally feel. Self-Reported Measures of Attribution Attributions for Positive Events Questionnaire (APEQ). The APEQ is based largely on Peterson et. al. s (1982) Attributional Style Questionnaire. The APEQ assesses people s approaches to making causal attributions following positive events that occur to them. Participants read each of ten situations and were instructed to briefly describe the primary cause of the positive event. Then, for each situation, the participant rates the internality of

6 the cause (1 = Totally due to others or circumstances and 7 = Totally due to me), the intentionality of the cause (1 = Intended by you or others and 7 = Unintended by you or others), the stability of the cause (1 = Will never again be present and 7 = Will always be present), specificity of the cause (1 = Influences just this particular situation and 7 = Influences all situations in my life), and importance of the situation if it actually happened (1 = Not at all important and 7 = Extremely important). The scale includes both everyday situations (6 drawn from Peterson et. al., (1982)) and more existential situations (4). An example of an everyday situation is You meet a friend that compliments you on your appearance. An example of an existential question is You think of the many good things you have in life.

7 We created global measures of participants tendencies to attribute internality, stability, specificity and importance by summing their scores on the respective items for each of the ten scenarios. We also created subscales scores to reflect their attributional tendencies separately for existential vs. everyday positive events. Procedure After describing the study, an investigator gave the questionnaire packet including an informed consent form to the students interested in participating, and they turned the packet back in to the investigator at the beginning of the next class period.

8 Results Table 1 shows the correlations between the attributional dimensions and the two gratitude measures. The stability, specificity and importance dimensions across all situations were related to the gratitude adjectives. After separating the items into existential and everyday situations, only the relationships associated with the existential situations remained significant.

9 Discussion As evident in the non-significant correlation between the gratitude measures and internality, grateful people were no more likely than their less grateful counterparts to attribute their successes to others or to themselves. However, grateful participants seemed to perceive the causes of the hypothetical positive situations to be more stable, global and intentional than did their less grateful counterparts. In other words, when grateful people imagined themselves experiencing positive outcomes, they also tended to imagine the causes of their positive outcomes to be highly stable (i.e. likely to be a permanent or enduring force) and to have wide-ranging effects on a variety of events. They also attribute greater importance to positive outcomes. The significant association of the grateful disposition and stability,

10 specificity, and importance attributions overall appeared to be driven largely by the relatively strong associations of gratitude with those dimensions in the existential situations. The next step in this study will be to look at the different free-answer causes listed by each participant to see if there are differences in the types of causes listed by grateful and less grateful people.

11 Table 1: Means, Standard Deviations, and Internal Consistancy Estimates for Major Study Variables M SD α GQ Gratitude Adjectives Internality Total Existential Everyday Intentionality Total Existential Everyday Stability Total Existential Everyday Specificity Total Existential Everyday Importance Total Existential Everyday N = 104

12 Everyday Situations: APEQ Situations A. You meet a friend who compliments you on your appearance. B. You become very rich. C. You do a project that is highly praised. D. Your romantic partner has been treating you more lovingly. E. You apply for a position that you want very badly (e.g. important job, graduate school admission) and you get it. F. You get a raise. Existential Situations: G. You think of the many good things you have in life. H. It strikes you that you have better food, shelter, and clothing than most people in the world. I. You are reminded of the last really good thing that happened to you. J. You narrowly avoid a collision with another vehicle on the highway.