The Multiple Facets of Gratitude: Exploring the Effects of Salvation, Serendipitous, and Serene Gratitude on Consumer Behavior
Open Access
- Author:
- Hyodo, Jamie Dale
- Graduate Program:
- Business Administration
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 29, 2016
- Committee Members:
- Margaret Grace Meloy, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Karen Page Winterich, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Johann Baumgartner, Committee Member
Lisa Elizabeth Bolton, Committee Member
Mosuk Chow, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Gratitude
prosocial behavior
high-effort consumption
donations - Abstract:
- Previous conceptualizations of gratitude have neither accounted for the state of need of the grateful individual before their benefit was received nor for the agency of the source of the benefit. Accounting for these factors leads to the development of a gratitude typology consisting of three gratitude types: salvation gratitude, serendipitous gratitude, and serene gratitude. Building on this typology, two essays demonstrate the differences between these gratitude types as well as the implications of the gratitude types for multiple consumer decision contexts. In the first essay, I explore how and why the three gratitude types emerge and establish their differences. This examination focuses on the affective composition of each gratitude type, the cognitive appraisals associated with each gratitude type, and the strength of pro-social behaviors motivated by each gratitude type in the context of donations. Importantly, salvation gratitude is found to have negative affective and cognitive elements, as well as reduced donation willingness and behavior. In the second essay, I explore the implications of each gratitude type on subjective feelings of control. In this essay, salvation gratitude is identified as inducing a state of decreased subjective feelings of control, relative to other forms of gratitude. The implications of reduced control are demonstrated in the context of preference for high-effort products, which offer a clear means through which consumers can re-establish subjective feelings of control. The dissertation concludes by discussing the implications of three gratitude types, as well as identifying a series of future research directions.