Influence Of Gratitude On Helping Behavior

Gratitude is the positive emotion one feels when another person has intentionally given, or attempted to give, one something of value. After a review of related literature, this paper proposes, based on the Moral Affect Theory and the Broaden-and-build Theory, that gratitude is different from both reciprocity norms and common positive emotions in that it can promote helping behavior.Taking college students as participants, the paper designed two experiments. Experiment 1 adopted a 2×2 between-subject design, handling the factor of altruism as covariate to prevent it from influencing the result, and finally made a distinction in the effects on helping and re-helping behaviors between two emotion states ( gratitude and indebtedness ) and two objects of helping ( helper and stranger ). Experiment 2 used a one-factor design, taking emotion state as independent variable, which includes two levels, gratitude and common positive emotion, and handling the factor of altruism as covariate, helping behaivor and active helping behavior as dependent variable, thus differentiated further between the effects of gratitude and common emotions on helping behavior.The result of these experiments proves our hypothesis, i.e., gratitude is different from reciprocity norms-based indebtedness and common positive emotions. The article deepens our understanding of the function of gratitude and discusses that gratitude can help cultivating prosocial behaviors and promoting social harmony.