Expressing Gratitude as Expressing Oneself: Authenticity and Meaning from Gratitude

Abstract

Gratitude confers many benefits on an individual, including heightened senses of well-being and meaning in life, and on those around them, with increased prosocial behavior and stronger social ties. Looking at the relationship between gratitude and meaning in life in particular, we believe that increased feelings of authenticity result from a grateful individual sharing that gratitude with another person. Given that authenticity arises in situations which are genuine, autonomous, and congruent (Ryan & Ryan, 2019), the expression of gratitude seems to be an ideal place for authentic feelings to emerge. Our central hypothesis is that authenticity mediates the relationship between gratitude and meaning in life, and specifically that expressing gratitude to another person helps facilitate this. We use initial data from a Study 1 to confirm these relationships through correlation, and conduct a further experimental study to examine these relationships through actual gratitude and control conditions.