The broad goal of this paper was to examine how perception of gratitude affects perception of status. Across three studies participants rated their perception of a target person’s gratitude, status, positivity, and other variables. Three hypotheses were developed. First, the prosocial hypothesis purported that gratitude signals one has prosocial traits (and therefore social value) and this makes the grateful person appear higher in status. Second, the competence hypothesis argued that gratitude signals incompetence and therefore reduces perception of status. Third, the halo effect hypothesis argued that because gratitude is a positive trait it might bias perception of other positive traits (like status). In Study 1, participants read a vignette about someone who was either dispositionally high or low in gratefulness. The high gratitude target was perceived as generally more positive and marginally higher in status than the low gratitude target. For Study 2, participants read a brief story involving one person helping another followed by an expression of weak or strong gratitude. Participants rated the strong gratitude person as more grateful than the weak gratitude person; however, the strong and weak gratitude targets did not significantly differ on any other factors. The help receiver (the person expressing weak or strong gratitude) and help provider differed on many factors. The help provider was perceived as lower in gratitude, lower in neediness, higher in general positivity, and higher in status than the help receiver. Thus, Study 2 partially supported the competence hypothesis. In the last study, more grateful targets were perceived as more positive and higher in status than the less grateful targets. Mediation analyses revealed that in Study 1 and Study 3 perceptions of general positivity mediated the effect of gratitude on status, suggesting that Study 1 and 3 supported the halo effect hypothesis. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / February 22, 2018. / emotion, gratitude, halo effect, person perception, status / Includes bibliographical references. / Roy F. Baumeister, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Paul Conway, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Ming Cui, University Representative; Andrea L. Meltzer, Committee Member; Alexandria Meyer, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_653462 |
| Contributors | MacKenzie, Michael J. (author), Baumeister, Roy F. (professor co-directing dissertation), Conway, Paul (professor co-directing dissertation), Cui, Ming, 1971- (university representative), Meltzer, Andrea L (committee member), Meyer, Alexandria (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Arts and Sciences (degree granting college), Department of Psychology (degree granting departmentdgg) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, doctoral thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (62 pages), computer, application/pdf |
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