A daily diary study of relationships between feelings of gratitude and well-being |
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| Authors: | John B. Nezlek David B. Newman Todd M. Thrash |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Psychology, College of William &2. Mary, Williamsburg, USA;3. University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poznań, Poland;4. Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA |
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| Abstract: | Much of the research on relationships between gratitude and well-being has concerned between-person level relationships, and this research suggests that increasing people’s feelings of gratitude can increase their well-being. To complement this research, we examined such relationships at the within-person level. Participants (N = 130) in the present study described their well-being and how grateful they felt each day for two weeks. MLM analyses found that at the within-person level, daily feelings of gratitude and hedonic and eudaimonic well-being were positively related. Lagged analyses found that feelings of gratitude on one day were positively related to hedonic (but not eudaimonic) well-being on the next day, and well-being on one day was not related to gratitude on the next day. These results complement existing research and suggest that causal relationships between gratitude and well-being may vary as a function of whether gratitude is measured in more affective or cognitive terms. |
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| Keywords: | Gratitude diary study well-being multilevel modeling causal relationships |
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