Research Articles and Chapters by Giacomo Bono
Education Sciences, 2023
Gratitude interventions can provide cost-effective support for mental health to underresourced sc... more Gratitude interventions can provide cost-effective support for mental health to underresourced schools. This study aims to better understand the effects of a promising intervention Bono et al. evaluated in 2020. Using a quasi-experimental design (where classes were assigned to a thanking app, gratitude curriculum, app + curriculum, or control condition), that evaluation found that the full (combined) intervention impacted students’ self-reported trait gratitude, anxiety, and subjective well-being (SWB) over six weeks, compared against only the control condition. However, here, we evaluated the individual intervention components’ effectiveness on students (N = 326) using multilevel modeling. As hypothesized, the full intervention impacted students’ gratitude, anxiety, and SWB, compared to the control condition, but impacted SWB more than the app-only condition, suggesting that teaching gratitude science makes thanking more meaningful. Then, we examined if stress mediated these effects. Perceived stress partially mediated the relationships of gratitude with depression and SWB and fully mediated the relationship of gratitude with anxiety. Additionally, changes in perceived stress and SWB differed by gender. Finally, we qualitatively analyzed thanks exchanges during the intervention using informal content analysis and found themes of psychological safety—a critical feature neglected in other interventions. We conclude with recommendations for optimizing school gratitude interventions.
American Psychological Association - Counseling Newsletter, 2020
Schools can use gratitude practices to help students build social and self-awareness skills to co... more Schools can use gratitude practices to help students build social and self-awareness skills to connect with and succeed in school. Recent efforts focus on improving equity to achieve wider, sustainable effects. Here we present a way for students and staff to practice gratitude that promotes equity and highlight ways school counselors can work with teachers and students to better support a positive school culture.
Journal of Positive Psychology, 2020
Adolescents face unprecedented wellbeing challenges, compared to previous generations, and many s... more Adolescents face unprecedented wellbeing challenges, compared to previous generations, and many schools are underprepared to meet these needs. Social emotional learning (SEL) programs help, but could better support moral development. Here we propose a modern approach to gratitude interventions (GI) in schools that addresses critical limitations and provides preliminary results of effectiveness. The GI combines a psychoeducational topdown technique with a bottom-up social-media-app modality that supports the autonomous practice of interpersonal and general gratitude. Compared to students in waitlist/ control classes, students in GI classes demonstrated improved outcomes in trait gratitude, mental health, and personal/social wellbeing after 6 weeks. Students' use of the app also demonstrated more grateful personality behaviors and personal engagement. Lastly, we examined the importance of interpersonal gratitude in general and found that expressing thanks contributed to improvements in SEL competencies among waitlist/control students 6 weeks later. Implications for improving character/SEL programs through school GIs are discussed.
Research in Human Development, 2018
Gratitude provides many advantages throughout development. This study provides a comprehensive re... more Gratitude provides many advantages throughout development. This study provides a comprehensive review of research on gratitude, with a focus on understanding how it is adaptive in human development. Mounting evidence shows that gratitude is advantageous because it helps reduce antisocial behavior and pathology, protects from stress, promotes physical and mental health, improves social functioning and interpersonal relationships, and supports resilience across the lifespan. We argue that gratitude is foundational for human development and that its advantages motivate self-improvement in people and enable them to work more effectively in social environments to achieve important goals. The review closes with a focus on current issues in assessment, methods, and interventions, as research in these areas will help advance empirical understanding of gratitude's role in human development and help inform better interventions. Overall, gratitude helps individuals find meaning and coherence in life so that they can improve themselves and elevate others.
Is gratitude developmentally related to improvements in social behavior? This study examined 566 ... more Is gratitude developmentally related to improvements in social behavior? This study examined 566 adolescents (51.6% female, M age = 11.95 years at baseline, 68.0% White, 11.0% African-American, 9.9% Asian-American, 1.9% Hispanic, 8.8% “Other”) from middle school to high school for 4 years. Controlling for social desirability, age, SES, and gender, gratitude growth predicted decreases in antisocial behavior over 4 years, and life satisfaction growth marginally mediated this relation. Further, gratitude growth predicted increases in prosocial behavior over 4 years, but life satisfaction did not mediate this relation. Reverse models were also examined. Antisocial behavior growth predicted gratitude change, which was mediated by life satisfaction growth. Prosocial behavior growth predicted gratitude change, but was not mediated by life satisfaction growth. Finally, gratitude growth predicted family support, trust, and intentional self-regulation at the 4 year timepoint, and it predicted empathy with marginal significance. Implications for theory and educational applications are discussed.
A CENTRAL TENET OF RESEARCH in positive psychology is that supportive social relationships are es... more A CENTRAL TENET OF RESEARCH in positive psychology is that supportive social relationships are essential to human thriving. Gratitude is perfectly suited to this end. Gratitude is the feeling people experience when they receive a gift or benefit from another person. It can also be an attitude of appreciating life as a gift. People with a grateful disposition tend to experience it more frequently, more intensely, toward more people, and for more things in their life at any given moment (McCul-lough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002). We begin this chapter with a brief review of basic research on gratitude, focusing first on adult populations and then on youth populations. We then turn to applied research pertaining to clinical purposes for adults and academic purposes for youth. Finally, we discuss how gratitude is related to the " good life " for adults and youth and close with suggestions for future research directions. It
Gratitude is essential to social life and well-being. Although research with youth populations ha... more Gratitude is essential to social life and well-being. Although research with youth populations has gained momentum recently, only two gratitude interventions have been conducted in youth, targeting mostly adolescents. In the current research, we tested a new intervention for promoting gratitude among the youngest children targeted to date. Elementary school classrooms (of 8-to 11-year-olds) were randomly assigned either to an intervention that educated children about the appraisal of benefit exchanges or to a control condition. We found that children's awareness of the social-cognitive appraisals of beneficial social exchanges (i.e., grateful thinking) can be strengthened and that this, in turn, makes children more grateful and benefits their well-being in terms of increased general positive affect. A daily intervention produced evidence that this new approach induced gratitude immediately (2 days later) and led children to express gratitude more behaviorally (i.e., they wrote 80% more thank-you cards to their Parent-Teacher Association). A weekly intervention induced gratitude up to 5 months later and additionally showed an effect on well-being (i.e., positive affect). Evidence thus supported the effectiveness of this intervention. Results are discussed in terms of implications for positive youth development and academic functioning.
Journal of Happiness Studies, 2011
Materialistic youth seem to be languishing while grateful youth seem to be flourishing. High scho... more Materialistic youth seem to be languishing while grateful youth seem to be flourishing. High school students (N = 1,035) completed measures of materialism, gratitude, academic functioning, envy, depression, life satisfaction, social integration, and absorption. Using structural equation modeling, we found that gratitude, controlling for materialism, uniquely predicts all outcomes considered: higher grade point average, life satisfaction, social integration, and absorption, as well as lower envy and depression. In contrast, materialism, controlling for gratitude, uniquely predicts three of the six outcomes: lower grade point average, as well as higher envy and life satisfaction. Furthermore, when examining the relative strengths of gratitude and materialism as predictors, we found that gratitude is generally a stronger predictor of these six outcomes than is materialism.
Motivation and Emotion, 2010
Gratitude, a positive response to receiving a benefit, may contribute more to youth than just mom... more Gratitude, a positive response to receiving a benefit, may contribute more to youth than just momentary happiness. It may ignite in youth a motivation for “upstream generativity” whereby its experience contributes to a desire to give back to their neighborhood, community, and world. We tested this notion by longitudinally examining early adolescents’ gratitude and their social integration, or motivation to use their strengths to help others and feel connected to others at a macro level. Middle school students (N = 700) completed measures of gratitude, prosocial behavior, life satisfaction, and social integration at baseline (T1), 3-months (T2), and 6-months (T3) later. Using bootstrapping to examine multiple mediators, controlling for demographics and social integration at T1, we found that gratitude at T1 predicted social integration at T3 and that prosocial behavior and life satisfaction at T2 mediated the relation. Further mediational analyses showed that gratitude and social integration serially enhanced each other. This prospective evidence aligns well with the interpretation that gratitude may help to initiate upward spirals toward greater emotional and social well-being. Implications are discussed in terms of gratitude’s role in positive youth development.
Psychological Assessment, 2011
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2007
Emotion, 2010
In two studies, the authors sought to identify the mathematical function underlying the temporal ... more In two studies, the authors sought to identify the mathematical function underlying the temporal course of forgiveness. A logarithmic model outperformed linear, exponential, power, hyperbolic, and exponential-power models. The logarithmic function implies a psychological process yielding diminishing returns, corresponds to the Weber-Fechner law, and is functionally similar to the power law underlying the psychophysical function ) and the forgetting function (Wixted & Ebbesen, 1997). By 3 months after their transgressions, the typical participant's forgiveness had increased by two log-odds units. Individual differences in rates of change were correlated with robust predictors of forgiveness. Consistent with evolutionary theorizing , Study 2 revealed that forgiveness was uniquely associated with participants' perceptions that their relationships with their offenders retained value.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2007
In 3 studies, the authors investigated whether within-persons increases in rumination about an in... more In 3 studies, the authors investigated whether within-persons increases in rumination about an interpersonal transgression were associated with within-persons reductions in forgiveness. Results supported this hypothesis. The association of transient increases in rumination with transient reductions in forgiveness appeared to be mediated by anger, but not fear, toward the transgressor. The association of rumination and forgiveness was not confounded by daily fluctuations in positive affect and negative affect, and it was not moderated by trait levels of positive affectivity, negative affectivity, or perceived hurtfulness of the transgression. Cross-lagged associations of rumination and forgiveness in Study 3 more consistently supported the proposition that increased rumination precedes reductions in forgiveness than the proposition that increased forgiveness precedes reductions in rumination.
Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 2006
Forgiveness and gratitude represent positive psychological responses to interpersonal harms and b... more Forgiveness and gratitude represent positive psychological responses to interpersonal harms and benefits that individuals have experienced. In the present article we first provide a brief review of the research that has shown forgiveness and gratitude to be related to various measures of physical and psychological well-being. We then review the empirical findings regarding the cognitive and affective substrates of forgiveness and gratitude. We also offer a selective review of some of the interventions that appear to be effective in encouraging forgiveness and gratitude. To conclude, we suggest some ways in which the insights from the basic research on promoting forgiveness and gratitude might be meaningfully integrated into cognitive psychotherapy.
and he has maintained an active research program bringing together forgiveness with health, relig... more and he has maintained an active research program bringing together forgiveness with health, religion, social psychology of relationships, positive psychology, gratitude, vengeance, rumination, and even two studies on interventions. Recently, he has worked on an evolutionary basis of forgiving and reconciliation as well as boundary maintenance. His productivity has been enhanced by making frequent collaborations with highly productive researchers. Dr. McCullough is an innovative methodologist, and he has brought the latest in statistics and research design into studying how forgiveness changes over time. He has shown that people might react differently to a transgression initially, which he calls forbearance. He also examines change in forgiveness over time, which he calls trend forgiveness. Finally, he notes that people's ratings of forgiveness might vary from day to day due to needs or daily events, which he calls temporary forgiveness. Not only has Dr. McCullough enhanced the network of forgiveness researchers through frequent and widespread collaboration, but he also has theoretically and methodologically advanced the study and understanding of forgiveness, and has popularized it through media and books.
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Research Articles and Chapters by Giacomo Bono