The effect of relative amount of benefit received on gratitude: When you compare the benefit you received with what another received

Abstract

We examined the extent to which a beneficiary experiences gratitude toward a benefit, as a function of what another beneficiary has received. In our experiment, participants who are university students read a scenario in which the protagonist received help from his or her classmate for a report. Imagining themselves as the protagonist, participants rated the extent to which they felt grateful. We manipulated what a protagonist’s friend underwent (i.e., receiving better help, receiving worse help, or being refused help). In the control condition, no mention of the protagonist’s friend was made. Overall, there was no significant difference between the gratitude experienced in various conditions. However, a comparison of the gratitude scores of participants in the lower half of each condition revealed that, the participants who read that the friend was refused help felt more grateful than those in the control condition. This suggests that knowing another person fails to receive helps increases gratitude among those who otherwise feel less gratitude.