What makes you feel grateful? A qualitative study to examine gratitude-eliciting events

• Main Authors: Yeo, Yet Phing, Mohd Hashim, Intan Hashimah
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: BF Psychology
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/13238/1/47.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/13238/; http://www.insanmaya.net/

Although many studies focusing on benefits of gratitude, only a few researchers have looked into factors of gratitude.These studies also tend to focus on the experience of gratefulness towards others’ help but not on the more comprehensive sources of gratefulness.Therefore, the aim of the present study is to examine all possible events or situations that can potentially elicit one’s gratefulness.Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 undergraduate students from a public university in Malaysia.The participants were asked to list down the events that could elicit their gratefulness.In addition, they were asked to indicate the most frequently occurring events and the events that elicited highest level of gratitude.The findings identified 7 domains and 25 categories (under the 7 domains) that developed from a total of 780 events reported by the participants.Findings showed that gaining something especially getting help from family would make people feel most grateful and it happens frequently.Furthermore, staying connected with people was also reported as happening frequently, which may be attributed to human’s motivation to maintain relationship with others.Moreover, individuals felt most grateful for others’ welfare and thank God for others related events.This implies that the members from collectivist culture (e.g., Malaysia) value others welfare over their own welfare.Lastly, the events were organised into a simpler version that consist of only 96 events that serve as a guideline for future researchers to develop measurement on gratitude-eliciting events.The limitations of present study and recommendations for future research were discussed.