Abstract

This study investigated personal and socio-cultural factors that influence gratitude experience (Study 1), identified different types of gratitude experiences in everyday life, and whether there are differences in gratitude experience based on life, Korean social satisfaction, and personal and socio-cultural characteristics (Study 2). In Study 1, 314 participants (127 men, 186 women, 1 anonymous; age M = 24.38, SD = 5.52, range: 18-49) completed tests to assess life and Korean social satisfaction, gratitude disposition (tendency), personal and societal gratitude, personality (Big Five), individualism-collectivism, and analytical-integrated thinking. Amos was then used to perform a structural model analysis. As a result, both life and Korean social satisfaction influenced personal and social gratitude positively. Among the five personality characteristics, extroversion had a negative impact on social gratitudes and emotional stability had a negative impact on personal gratitudes, with gratitude disposition having a static impact on both. The greater the collectivism, the greater the personal and Korean social satisfaction and the greater the integrated thinking tendency, the greater the personal appreciation. In Study 2, 65 participants (male = 31; female = 34; age M = 23.02, SD = 3.15) were asked to keep a diary on their gratitdude experience for two weeks. As a result, gratitude experiences were classified as personal, social, or transcendent. Overall, the ‘upper’ group had a higher frequency of gratidue experience than the ‘lower’ group due to higher variable scores. Regardless of the degree of factors, however, the frequency of social gratitudes was quite low. When the forms of gratitude experiences in everyday life are considered together, the influence of variables by dimension varies depending on the type of gratitude. These findings imply that multimodal psychosocial intervention is required to increase gratitude, which is linked to both social and personal well-being.