2248 - INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF GRATITUDE INTERVENTIONS ON SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY BEHAVIORS ACROSS DOMAINS

Session: D01S034 - Learning, Training & Skill Development 2
AUTHORS:
Babu Nishat (Loughborough University ~ Loughborough ~ United Kingdom)
Abstract text:
Introduction and purpose: Provisional research has shown that gratitude interventions can engender positive outcomes in the workplace (Locklear et al., 2021; Sawyer et al., 2022). However, existing research has neglected a focus on prosocial (i.e., social responsibility) behaviours, which gratitude is predicted to facilitate through upward reciprocity, as well as methodologically not accounting for the effectiveness of different types of gratitude interventions. As per broaden and build theory (Fredrickson, 2001), a work-specific and general gratitude intervention are predicted to broaden one's perspective and build resources, to facilitate social responsibility behaviours in individuals, in comparison to an active control group. It is predicted that the gratitude interventions will have domain-specific effects (e.g., work vs personal).


Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: general gratitude, work-specific gratitude, and an active control condition (total N = 210). Participants provided baseline measures in week 1, then engaged in the intervention for a period of four weeks, and subsequently responded to a variety of prosocial outcome measures in week 6.


Results:
There was a significant difference between intervention conditions [F (2, 105.71) = 4.90, p = 0.009]: the general (M = 3.71) and work-specific (M = 3.72) conditions were not significantly different from one another, but both the general (p = 0.012) and work-specific (p = 0.015) groups had significantly higher gratitude scores in comparison to the control group (M = 3.13). Participants in the general gratitude condition had significantly lower environmental behaviour (B = -0.181, p = 0.048) versus the control group, and the work-specific condition had lower scores on work-related corporate volunteering than the general gratitude condition (B = -0.328, p = 0.064).


Conclusion: The current study provides evidence of causality as well as contributing to absent research on the effects of gratitude within and through the workplace, on social good.