Philip C. Watkins

The debt of gratitude: Dissociating gratitude and indebtedness

We investigated the relationship between the emotional states of gratitude and indebtedness in two studies. Although many have suggested that these affects are essentially equivalent, we submit that they are distinct emotional states. Following Heider (1958), we propose that with increasing expectations of return communicated with a gift by a benefactor, indebtedness should increase but gratitude should decrease. The results of two vignette studies supported this hypothesis, and patterns of thought/action tendencies showed these states to be distinct. In addition, we found that with increasing expectations communicated by a benefactor, beneficiaries reported that they would be less likely to help the benefactor in the future. Taken together, we argue that the debt of gratitude is internally generated, and is not analogous to an economic form of indebtedness.

Unconscious mood-congruent memory bias in depression.

The purpose of this study was to investigate an unconscious or implicit mood-congruent memory (MCM) bias in clinical depression. Many studies have shown an explicit memory bias, but no study has yet found an implicit MCM bias in clinical depression. The authors compared depressed and control group participants on a conceptually driven implicit memory test. After studying words of positive, neutral, and negative affective valences, participants produced free associations to various cues. Implicit memory or priming was demonstrated by the production of more studied than unstudied words to the association cues. Depressed participants showed more priming of negative words, whereas controls showed more priming of positive words, thus supporting the MCM pattern. Also, no implicit memory deficit was found in depressed participants. These findings are discussed in the context of several prominent theories of cognition and depression.

Validation of self-ideal body size discrepancy as a measure of body dissatisfaction

Recently, body dissatisfaction has been conceptualized as the discrepancy between self and ideal body size estimates. This study evaluated the validity of this conceptualization using three methods for estimating actual and ideal body size: (a) the Body Image Assessment, (b) the Body Image Testing System, and (c) the Body Image Detection Device. The three body image assessment procedures were concurrently administered to a sample of 110 women diagnosed: bulimia nervosa (n=18),obese (n=34),and non-eating disorder (n=58).The Eating Disorder Inventory Body Dissatisfaction scale was also used to measure body dissatisfaction. Measures of self-ideal body size discrepancy were found to correlate more highly with measures of body dissatisfaction than were measures of current body size perception, ideal body size, body size estimation accuracy, or indices based on actual body size. Estimation of both current and ideal body size were found to significantly predict overall body dissatisfaction; thus, both self and ideal body size measures were found to be significant components in determining body size dissatisfaction. These data were interpreted as supportive of the conceptualization of body dissatisfaction as the discrepancy between self and ideal body size estimates.

Measuring Gratitude in Youth: Assessing the Psychometric Properties of Adult Gratitude Scales in Children and Adolescents

Before the developmental trajectory, outcomes, and related interventions of gratitude can be accurately and confidently studied among the youth, researchers must ensure that they have psychometrically sound measures of gratitude that are suitable for this population. Thus, considering that no known scales were specifically designed to measure gratitude in youth, this study aimed to answer an important question: Are the existing gratitude scales used with adults valid for use with youth? The present study is an empirical investigation, based on a large youth sample (N = 1,405) with ages ranging from 10 to 19 years old, of the psychometric properties of scores of the Gratitude Questionnaire-6 (GQ-6; M. E. McCullough, R. A. Emmons, & J.-A. Tsang, 2002), the Gratitude Adjective Checklist (GAC; M. E. McCullough, R. A. Emmons, & J.-A. Tsang, 2002), and the Gratitude Resentment and Appreciation Test (GRAT)-short form (M. Thomas & P. Watkins, 2003). Single-group and multiple-group confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the factor structures of these gratitude scales resemble those found with adults and were invariant across age groups. Scores of all three gratitude scales revealed acceptable internal consistency estimates (i.e., >.70) across age groups. Results showed that whereas scores of all three gratitude scales were positively correlated with each other for 14- to 19-year-olds, GRAT-short form scores tended to display relatively low correlations with scores of the other two measures for younger children (10-13 years old). Furthermore, the nomological network analysis showed that scores of all three gratitude scales were positively correlated with positive affect and life satisfaction scores across the age groups. The relationships with negative affect and depression scores, however, seemed dependent on the childs age. Pending results from subsequent research recommendations for researchers interested in studying gratitude in youth are offered.

Implicit memory bias in depression

In this review I describe research conducted in my laboratory concerning implicit mood-congruent memory (MCM) bias in clinical depression. MCM is the tendency for depressed individuals to retrieve more unpleasant information from memory than nondepressed controls, and may be an important maintenance mechanism in depression. MCM has been studied frequently with explicit memory tests, but relatively few studies have investigated MCM using implicit memory tests. I describe several implicit memory studies which show that: (a) an implicit MCM bias does not appear to exist when perceptually driven tests are used; (b) implicit memory bias can be found when conceptually driven tests are used, but (c) not all conceptually driven tests show implicit MCM bias. I conclude that conceptual processing is necessary, but is not sufficient for demonstrating implicit memory bias in depression. Future studies should investigate specific components of conceptual elaboration that support implicit memory bias in depression.

Taking care of business? Grateful processing of unpleasant memories

In this study we investigated the impact of grateful processing on bringing closure to unpleasant emotional memories. After recalling an open memory, participants were randomly assigned to one of three writing conditions. For three sessions, participants wrote about neutral topics, the unpleasant event itself, or positive consequences from the event from their open memory that they felt they could now be grateful for. Results showed a significant effect of writing condition, and the pattern of means were as predicted: those in the grateful condition showed more memory closure, less unpleasant emotional impact, and less intrusiveness of the open memory than the other writing conditions. Grateful reappraisal of unpleasant memories may help individuals emotionally process these events, thus bringing emotional closure to these incidents. This might be one reason that grateful people tend to be happy people.

Death and gratitude: Death reflection enhances gratitude

Although gratitude is important to the good life, little is known about factors that enhance gratitude. Some have suggested that traumatic events such as near-death experiences and life-threatening illnesses might enhance gratitude. If reflecting on death causes one to appreciate life as a limited resource, this might enhance gratitude. This study investigated this theory. Participants were randomly assigned to a death reflection condition, a traditional mortality salience condition, or to a control condition. Participants in the death reflection and the mortality salience conditions showed enhanced gratitude compared to individuals in the control condition, supporting the theory that becoming aware of ones mortal limitations enhances gratitude for the life that what one has.

Grateful recounting enhances subjective well-being: The importance of grateful processing

We used a randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of a gratitude 3-blessings treatment for enhancing subjective well-being. Although several experimental studies have investigated gratitude interventions, many of these have used inadequate control conditions, and currently we know little about how gratitude treatments work. In this study, subjects were randomly assigned to one of three daily 1-week treatments: memory placebo, pride 3-blessings, or gratitude 3-blessings. The gratitude 3-blessings treatment significantly outperformed the comparison treatments in enhancing well-being. Moreover, the well-being of those in the gratitude treatment continued to climb after the treatment phase, similar to the findings of Seligman, Steen, Park, and Peterson (2005). We also found that the gratitude treatment enhanced the accessibility of positive memories compared to the comparison treatments. Our results suggest that exercises like the gratitude 3-blessings treatment may train cognitive biases that are salubrious to subjective well-being.

An Uncontrolled Evaluation of Inpatient and Outpatient Cognitive-Behavior Therapy for Bulimia Nervosa

Inpatient (n = 27) and outpatient (n = 22) cognitive-behavior therapy programs for bulimia nervosa were evaluated in an uncontrolled experiment. Both treatment conditions included exposure with response prevention and cognitive restructuring. Inpatient treatment had a mean length of stay of 5 weeks. Outpatient treatment lasted 15 weeks. Both groups were followed after the end of treatment. The results showed that both programs were effective in reducing problems associated with bulimia nervosa. The inpatient program led to very rapid progress, whereas the outpatient program led to more gradual improvement. There was, however, a trend toward relapse for inpatients. Other psychological disturbances (e.g., depression) were improved after inpatient, but not outpatient, treatment. These data were discussed in terms of their implications for treatment planning for cases of bulimia nervosa.

Thieves of thankfulness: Traits that inhibit gratitude

Abstract If gratitude is important to well-being, it is important to understand the factors that might inhibit gratitude. The purpose of this study was to investigate four putative inhibitors of gratitude: narcissism, cynicism, materialism/envy, and indebtedness. We used a prospective design where participants were administered measures related to the putative inhibitors along with trait and state gratitude, 2 months apart. After controlling for initial levels of gratitude, Time 1 narcissism, cynicism, and materialism/envy were negatively associated with Time 2 state gratitude. Evidence also supported the theory that narcissism and cynicism may interact in a vicious cycle over time. We conclude that narcissism, cynicism, and materialism inhibit state gratitude, and narcissism and cynicism may be the foundational ‘thieves of thankfulness.’