A situational experiment about the relationship among gratitude, indebtedness,happiness and helping behavior / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To test the effects and differences of gratitude,indebtedness and happiness on people's helping behaviors. Methods:Totally 190 college students from 3 classes in Henan Province were selected. Three sit-uational experiments of gratitude,indebtedness and happiness were used to inspire participants'mood according-ly. Each class randomized to receive a situational experiment,the altruism subscales of Philosophies of Human Na-ture(PHN),the assessment tool of helping others and helping others voluntarily were used to measure the college students'altruistic idea,helping others and helping behavior voluntarily,and the methods of descriptive statistics,co-variance analysis and regression analysis was adopted. Results:In helping others and helping others voluntarily,ac-cording to the results of covariance analysis,the effect of covariate altruistic ideas was significant [F(1,186)=9. 24,10. 52;Ps<0. 01],and the main effect of emotional state was also significant[F(2,186)=3. 50,3. 45;Ps<0. 05 ]. The scores of helping others and helping others voluntarily were higher in the gratitude group than in the happiness group[(4. 21 ±0. 10)vs. (3. 86 ±0. 09),(4. 22 ±0. 09)vs. (3. 90 ±0. 08)]. Regression analysis showed that gratitude could positively predict helping others and helping others voluntarily(β=0. 33,0. 20),and happiness could positively predict helping others voluntarily(β=0. 16). Conclusion:Excluding the effect of altruism idea to helping others and helping others voluntarily,the effects of emotional state to helping others and helping others vol-untarily are all significant. It suggests that participants under the state of gratitude could show more helping others and helping others voluntarily than participants under happiness,that is to say,comparing with happiness,gratitude may be more conducive to the cultivation of helping behavior.