First Name:
Anna
Last Name:
Dowling
Major Department:
Psychology
Thesis Director:
Lisa Emery
Date of Thesis:
Dec 2010
While people with high levels of dispositional gratitude experience more positive memory appraisals and closure, it is not clear whether a person can cultivate grateful affect and experience the same benefit. The effect of a gratitude manipulation on the amount of positive memories recalled from a person's autobiographical memory, emotional impact ratings of memories, and closure over negative events was examined. After assessing trait gratitude on Day 1, participants were randomly assigned to 1 to 3 writing conditions (gratitude, personal accomplishments, or neutral). For the next six days, participants wrote daily journal entries about three things they were grateful for, three personal accomplishments, or the food they ate the day before. On Day 7, participants also completed an autobiographical memory test. A manipulation check indicated that although trait gratitude did predict positive and grateful affect, the gratitude manipulation had no effect. Similarly, although people high in trait gratitude rated their memories more positively, there was no effect of condition on appraisal of memories. Results suggest that while trait gratitude does influence the way we perceive our past, cultivating gratitude may be more difficult than previously thought.