Effects of zero-sum belief on gratitude in apologetic form represented by “sumimasen”

Imai T.

The core idea of the find-remind-and-bind theory articulated by (Algoe, 2012, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6, 455) is that receiving expressed gratitude facilitates positive attitudes toward the expressor such as increased prosocial behaviour. The current study tries to observe the phenomena in Japan where apologies are sometimes used when people express gratitude. In this experimental study, 671 Japanese participants received expressions of gratitude, apologies, both, or neither (control condition) in exchange for their help. The results showed that expressed gratitude had the most positive effect compared to the control, apology and both conditions; that is, expressed gratitude most strongly facilitated the message receiver's prosocial behaviour, self-disclosure, predicted outcome values, and social worth. Expressed apologies showed a limited positive effect. A structural equation model further indicated that predicted outcome values and social worth functioned in unique ways to mediate the link between expressed gratitude and prosocial behaviour as well as self-disclosure.

Ongis M., Davidai S.

Why do people view economic success as zero-sum? In seven studies (including a large, nationally representative sample of more than 90,000 respondents from 60 countries), we explore how personal relative deprivation influences zero-sum thinking-the belief that one person's gains can only be obtained at other people's expense. We find that personal relative deprivation fosters a belief that economic success is zero-sum, and that this is true regardless of participants' household income, political ideology, or subjective social class. Moreover, in a large and preregistered study, we find that the effect of personal relative deprivation on zero-sum thinking is mediated by lay perceptions of society. The more people see themselves as having been unfairly disadvantaged relative to others, the more they view the world as unjust and economic success as determined by external forces beyond one's control. In turn, these cynical views of society lead people to believe that economic success is zero-sum. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on social comparisons, the distribution of resources, and the psychological consequences of feeling personally deprived. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Sirola N., Pitesa M.

Workplace helping is essential to the success of organizations and economies. Given the economic benefits of helping, it seems important that, during difficult economic periods, the amount of helpi...

Washizu N., Naito T.

Sumanai is a Japanese word that refers to a feeling in response to a favor; it includes gratitude, along with sorrow and sometimes guilt for having put the benefactor to so much trouble. The purpose of the current research was to explore sumanai, gratitude, and indebtedness, and their relations to interpersonal orientation and psychological well-being. Results from Study 1 with 115 female Japanese university students confirmed the distinct meanings of gratitude, sumanai, and indebtedness in terms of their dissimilar correlations with other feelings. The results also revealed that when the benefactor’s expectation for repayment was manipulated, gratitude and sumanai, but not indebtedness, decreased with increasing benefactor expectations. In Study 2 with a sample of 179 female Japanese university students, sumanai had a significant positive correlation with interpersonal orientation but did not have a significant positive correlation with psychological well-being. Interpersonal orientation mediated the relation between indebtedness and psychological well-being, but did not mediate the relation between gratitude and psychological well-being. Gratitude had significant direct paths to psychological well-being and interpersonal orientation. An alternative model was also supported; gratitude mediated the relation between interpersonal orientation and psychological well-being. The contribution of gratitude to well-being and interpersonal orientation are consistent with the extant literature, pointing to gratitude’s ability to build and maintain social relationships.

Różycka-Tran J., Boski P., Wojciszke B.

This article introduces a novel concept, Belief in a Zero-Sum Game (BZSG), proposed as another belief dimension in the family of social axioms. We conceptualize BZSG as a belief system about the antagonistic nature of social relations—that one person’s gain is possible only at the expense of other persons. It appears on a level of personal convictions and as a cultural worldview ideology. We found that persons or nations who believe in a zero-sum game engage in win-lose social exchanges over limited resources. Psychometric evidence for the universality of the BZSG scale in a large pancultural project of 37 nations is presented, where individual and cultural-level predictors of BZSG were tested, followed by their multilevel analyses. BZSG, which shows a conceptual and empirical affinity with societal cynicism, is moderated by previously described cultural dimensions and by objective socio-economic indices.

Lee H.E.

Three studies investigated whether apologies and/or thanks in a favor asking email message increase normality of the message, positive attitude about the message, sender credibility and willingness to give the favor in the U.S. and Korea. Participants as the Sender in study 1 ( N = 521) and as the Receiver in study 2 ( N = 386) completed one of four versions of a questionnaire regarding a prototype of a message for a given situation. Unlike study 1 using a single act of apology or thanks, repeated apologies and thanks were used in the messages of study 2. Study 3 ( N = 807) used seven versions of a questionnaire for a situation different from the first two studies. An apology created some positive responses by Koreans in study 1, repeated apologies led to positive responses by Koreans in study 2, and repeated apologies for Koreans and thanks for Americans created positive responses in study 3. Implications and future research directions were discussed.

MacKenzie M.J., Vohs K.D., Baumeister R.F.

Four studies tested the hypothesis that a weaker belief in free will would be related to feeling less gratitude. In Studies 1a and 1b, a trait measure of free will belief was positively correlated with a measure of dispositional gratitude. In Study 2, participants whose free will belief was weakened (vs. unchanged or bolstered) reported feeling less grateful for events in their past. Study 3 used a laboratory induction of gratitude. Participants with an experimentally reduced (vs. increased) belief in free will reported feeling less grateful for the favor. In Study 4, a reduced (vs. increased) belief in free will led to less gratitude in a hypothetical favor scenario. This effect was serially mediated by perceiving the benefactor as having less free will and therefore as being less sincerely motivated. These findings suggest that belief in free will is an important part of being able to feel gratitude.

Williams L.A., Bartlett M.Y.

Recent theorizing on the nature and function of gratitude (the find-remind-and-bind theory; Algoe, 2012) stipulates that expressing gratitude should serve to alert previously unacquainted peers to the potential for a high-quality social bond (i.e., a find function). Although the logic of this premise is supported by extant research, it has not, as yet, been tested empirically. In the current study, participants received a note from a previously unacquainted peer that contained an expression of gratitude (or did not) with regard to prior benefits provided by the participant. After providing ratings of the peer and ostensibly completing the study, participants were given an opportunity to spontaneously give their contact information to the peer, which served as a behavioral measure of affiliation. In line with the proposed find function of gratitude expressions, recipients of expressions of gratitude were more likely to extend the effort to continue the relationship with the novel peer by providing that peer with a means to contact them. This experiment also provided evidence that perceptions of interpersonal warmth (e.g., friendliness, thoughtfulness) serve as the mechanism via which gratitude expressions facilitate affiliation: insofar as gratitude expressions signaled interpersonal warmth of the expresser, they prompted investment in the burgeoning social bond. As such, these findings provide the first empirical evidence regarding 1 of the 3 central premises of the find-remind-and-bind theory of gratitude (Algoe, 2012) in the context of novel relationships.

Maniaci M.R., Rogge R.D.

The current studies examined the adverse effects of inattentive responding on compliance with study tasks, data quality, correlational analyses, experimental manipulations, and statistical power. Results suggested that 3–9% of respondents engaged in highly inattentive responding, forming latent classes consistent with prior work that converged across existing indices (e.g., long-string index, multivariate outliers, even–odd consistency, psychometric synonyms and antonyms) and new measures of inattention (the Attentive Responding Scale and the Directed Questions Scale). Inattentive respondents provided self-report data of markedly poorer quality, sufficient to obscure meaningful regression results as well as the effects of experimental manipulations. Screening out inattentive respondents improved statistical power, helping to mitigate the notable drops in power and estimated effect sizes caused by inattention.

Kuranaga H., Higuchi M.

Niiya Y., Crocker J., Mischkowski D.

In American samples, compassionate goals to support others enhance relationships, whereas self-image goals to construct and defend desired self-images undermine relationships. But do these goals exist as separate factors, and do they predict similar outcome variables in Japan? How much do compassionate goals overlap with having an interdependent self-construal? We examined the factor structure of compassionate and self-image goals scale among American undergraduates, Japanese undergraduates, and Japanese adults and obtained similar correlated two-factor solutions in all three samples. In all three samples, compassionate goals were associated with non-zero-sum belief, growth-seeking, and self-compassion, whereas self-image goals were associated with validation-seeking and defensive responses to conflicts. Although compassionate goals correlated with interdependence in Japan, controlling for interdependence did not affect the above associations.

Algoe S.B.

Though interest in the emotion of gratitude has historically focused on its role in social exchange, new evidence suggests a different and more important role for gratitude in social life. The find-remind-and-bind theory of gratitude posits that the positive emotion of gratitude serves the evolutionary function of strengthening a relationship with a responsive interaction partner (Algoe, Haidt, & Gable, 2008). The current article identifies prior, economic models of gratitude, elaborates on unique features of the find-remind-and-bind theory, reviews the accumulating evidence for gratitude in social life in light of this novel perspective, and discusses how the find-remind-and-bind theory is relevant to methodology and hypothesis testing. In sum, within the context of reciprocally-altruistic relationships, gratitude signals communal relationship norms and may be an evolved mechanism to fuel upward spirals of mutually responsive behaviors between recipient and benefactor. In this way, gratitude is important for forming and maintaining the most important relationships of our lives, those with the people we interact with every day.

Lee H.E., Park H.S., Imai T., Dolan D.

Three studies investigated whether apologies and thanks are used differently when asking favors in the United States and Japan and examined whether their use makes a favor asking message less face-threatening. In Study 1, participants ( N = 152) composed an email message for a favor asking situation. Next, participants in Study 2 ( N = 634) and Study 3 ( N = 417) completed one of four versions of a questionnaire regarding a prototype of an email message. Results showed that (a) more Japanese included apologies in their messages while more Americans used thanks and (b) Japanese considered apologies to reduce some face threats while Americans did not consider thanks to reduce face threats. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Lee H.E., Park H.S.

Grant A.M., Gino F.

Although research has established that receiving expressions of gratitude increases prosocial behavior, little is known about the psychological mechanisms that mediate this effect. We propose that gratitude expressions can enhance prosocial behavior through both agentic and communal mechanisms, such that when helpers are thanked for their efforts, they experience stronger feelings of self-efficacy and social worth, which motivate them to engage in prosocial behavior. In Experiments 1 and 2, receiving a brief written expression of gratitude motivated helpers to assist both the beneficiary who expressed gratitude and a different beneficiary. These effects of gratitude expressions were mediated by perceptions of social worth and not by self-efficacy or affect. In Experiment 3, we constructively replicated these effects in a field experiment: A manager's gratitude expression increased the number of calls made by university fundraisers, which was mediated by social worth but not self-efficacy. In Experiment 4, a different measure of social worth mediated the effects of an interpersonal gratitude expression. Our results support the communal perspective rather than the agentic perspective: Gratitude expressions increase prosocial behavior by enabling individuals to feel socially valued.