The Effect Of Gratitude On Adolescent Prosocial Behavior:the Mediating Role Of Goodwill Perception

Prosocial behavior refers to all the behaviors that are beneficial to others and social harmony,such as helping,cooperating,sharing and comforting,shown by individuals in social interaction.With the rise of positive psychology,people begin to pay attention to the role of gratitude in cultivating prosocial behavior.Most of the previous studies examined the influence of one’s gratitude tendency and gratitude emotion after receiving favors on individual helping behavior from the individual level,reflecting the function and effect of gratitude in an independent individual.This study believes that gratitude can also be a behavioral expression between people,and expressing “thank you” is also a form of gratitude.Gratitude expression reflects the interactive process of gratitude at the duality and group level.Firstly,the expression of gratitude includes the benefactor and the beneficiary,which is a binary concept.After receiving help,the beneficiary expresses gratitude to the benefactor.Will the feedback of gratitude prompt the benefactor to further provide help to the beneficiary? Secondly,in our daily life,we can often observe others expressing “gratitude” to each other.When a third party observes others expressing gratitude to each other,will the psychological state and behavior of the third party witnessing gratitude change and the result? In order to explore the above problems,this study adopts the combination of questionnaire method and experiment method to further study the relationship between gratitude and prosocial behavior.In the first study,questionnaire survey was used to investigate the relationship between gratitude and prosocial behavior at the individual level,as well as the development status of adolescents’ prosocial behavior.The results showed that the development status of adolescent prosocial behavior is above the average level.Pearson correlation analysis and regression analysis showed that there was a significant positive correlation between gratitude and prosocial behavior,and gratitude could positively predict prosocial behavior.The higher the level of gratitude,the higher the level of prosocial behavior.In the second study,experimental methods were used to explore the causal relationship and mechanism between gratitude and prosocial behavior of adolescents at the dual and group levels.Study 2 consisted of two experiments.Experiment 1 explored the influence of gratitude expression on prosocial behavior and the mediating role of goodwill perception in duality relationships.The results showed that gratitude expression could promote adolescents’ prosocial behavior,and goodwill perception played a mediating role in the promotion process of gratitude expression on prosocial behavior.Experiment 2 explored the influence of testimonial gratitude on prosocial behavior and the mediating role of goodwill perception in group relations.The results showed that testimonial gratitude could promote adolescents’ prosocial behavior,and goodwill perception played a mediating role in the promotion process of testimonial gratitude on prosocial behavior.The following conclusions can be drawn from the above research:(1)The development status of adolescent prosocial behavior is above the average level.(2)There is a significant positive correlation between gratitude and prosocial behavior in adolescents.Gratitude can positively predict prosocial behavior.The higher the level of gratitude,the higher the level of prosocial behavior.(3)Gratitude expression can promote prosocial behavior of adolescents,and goodwill perception plays an intermediary role in the promotion of gratitude expression to prosocial behavior.(4)Witnessing gratitude can promote prosocial behavior of adolescents,and the perception of goodwill plays an intermediary role in the process of promoting prosocial behavior through witnessing gratitude.