Gratitude in intermediate affective terrain: Links of grateful moods to individual differences and daily emotional experience

Two studies were conducted to explore gratitude in daily mood and the relationships among various affective manifestations of gratitude. In Study 1, spiritual transcendence and a variety of positive affective traits were related to higher mean levels of gratitude across 21 days. Study 2 replicated these findings and revealed that on days when people had more grateful moods than was typical for them, they also reported more frequent daily episodes of grateful emotions, more intense gratitude per episode, and more people to whom they were grateful than was typical for them. In addition, gratitude as an affective trait appeared to render participants ’ grateful moods somewhat resistant to the effects of discrete emotional episodes of gratitude. Throughout the history of ideas, gratitude has been defined in many ways. Adam Smith (1790/1976) defined gratitude as “the sentiment which most immediately and directly prompts us to reward ” (p. 68). Similarly, Weiner and Graham (1989) defined gratitude as “a stimulus to return a favor to the other and thus reintroduce balance ” (p. 403). In recognition of gratitude’s appre-ciative quality, Lazarus and Lazarus (1994) conceptualized grati