Noticing and appreciating the sunny side of life: Exploration of a novel gratitude intervention that utilizes mindfulness techniques

An experimental study examined the positive emotional outcomes of two gratitude inductions: a traditionally-used written gratitude list ("gratitude") and a novel gratitude list with mindfulness components ("mindful-gratitude"). In a control exercise, participants wrote about their living room layout. Undergraduates performed one of the three exercises for 5 minutes. The moderating role of empathy on the gratitude - positive affect relationship was also investigated. Following previous theory and research, it was expected that: (1) the practice of gratitude and mindful-gratitude would boost immediate positive affect and lower negative affect, relative to the control condition, (2) the novel mindful-gratitude intervention would boost immediate positive affect and lower negative affect, in comparison to the traditional gratitude list intervention, and (3) state empathy was expected to moderate the effects of gratitude induction on mood, such that both experimental exercises would be more effective for participants higher in empathy than participants lower in empathy. Hypothesis 1 was supported by evidence that the experimental inductions offered incremental benefit over the control exercise. For Hypothesis 2, empathy exhibited significant moderation of the gratitude--mood benefit relationship, but not in the manner hypothesized. Instead, participants lower in empathy responded significantly more, as measured by increased positive affect and decreased negative affect, to the mindful-gratitude induction than the gratitude list induction. This is in contrast to the higher empathy participants, who responded similarly to both inductions. Implications of the results for understanding the factors involved in the development of effective gratitude interventions are discussed.