Gratitude and Indebtedness When Receiving Help

Agata Wolanin, Jan Rybak

Abstract


The aim of the study was to show the relationship between the emotion of gratitude and the sense of debt and other emotions, as well as the relationship between the emotion of gratitude and debt and dispositional gratitude. The purpose of the study was also to show whether gratitude correlates with a sense of debt and whether it is related to other emotions to a different extent. The aim of the study was also to determine to whom the respondents are grateful and to whom they most often feel indebted. In the study, there were included 148 students of nursing, emergency medical services and pedagogy (100 women, 48 men). The GQ-6 tool of Michael E. McCullough and Robert Emmons’ dispositional gratitude was used, in the Polish adaptation of Marlena Kossakowska and Piotr Kwiatek, the own scale of the intensity of emotions and experimental manipulation aimed at arousing the emotions of gratitude or indebtedness. Gratitude was positively related to joy more strongly in women. Only in women was indebtedness associated with joy and guilt. In the condition of gratitude, gratitude was not associated with a sense of debt, while in the condition of indebtedness, indebtedness was positively related to gratitude. In both conditions, the respondents more often felt the emotion of gratitude than indebtedness. In condition of gratitude, the respondents felt significantly more gratitude than negative emotions. In the condition of indebtedness, the respondents felt more debt than other negative emotions. The respondents more often felt gratitude towards their loved ones, and more often they felt gratitude than debt.


Keywords


gratitude; indebtedness; help; emotions

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/j.2021.34.3.147-162
Date of publication: 2021-12-23 22:21:15
Date of submission: 2021-03-01 14:06:32


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