Grateful but harsh? Dispositional gratitude predicts moral condemnation in the U.S., the UK, and China

DOI

People differ in their tendency to be grateful, and this affects interpersonal dynamics. Previous research found that individuals with high (versus low) levels of dispositional gratitude exhibited more prosocial behaviors. In this study we demonstrate that dispositional gratitude may also be associated with negative responses toward others. Specifically, we examined the link between dispositional gratitude and condemnations of various moral transgressions. Given that moral norms might be culture-specific, we recruited participants from the U.S., the UK, and China (N = 593 in total) to test potential cultural moderators. Results showed that the higher people scored on dispositional gratitude, the more morally wrong they evaluated transgressions to be, and the more punishment they thought that transgressors deserved. The associations were robust across moral domains, countries, and perceived levels of societal tightness. These findings underscore the pervasive and differentiated impact of dispositional gratitude in interpersonal relations, as it may not only increase prosocial behavior but also intensify negative responses to others who violate moral norms.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.34894/1AUI76
Related Identifier IsSupplementTo https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2025.113452
Metadata Access https://dataverse.nl/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=doi:10.34894/1AUI76
Provenance
Creator Zhang, Xueting (ORCID: 0000-0003-1996-307X); Van Doesum, Niels ORCID logo; Van Dillen, Lotte ORCID logo; Van Dijk, Eric ORCID logo
Publisher DataverseNL
Contributor Xueting Zhang; Niels van Doesum; Data Stewards Behavioral Sciences
Publication Year 2026
Rights CC-BY-4.0; info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
OpenAccess true
Contact Xueting Zhang (Leiden University); Niels van Doesum (Leiden University); Data Stewards Behavioral Sciences (Leiden University)
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format application/zip; text/plain
Size 543973; 651570; 435873; 1550; 2603037; 481182; 4466; 35351; 181113
Version 1.0
Discipline Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Aquaculture; Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Aquaculture and Veterinary Medicine; Life Sciences; Social Sciences; Social and Behavioural Sciences; Soil Sciences