Living with Gratitude: Spouse’s Gratitude on One’s Depression

Research has shown that gratitude makes people happier (McCullough and Tsang in Psychol Gratitude, Oxford University Press, pp 123–141, 2004 ; Wood et al. in Clin Psychol Rev 30(7):890–905, 2010 ), healthier (McCullough et al. in J Pers Soc Psychol, 86(2):295–309, 2004 ), more considerate (Bartlett and DeSteno in Psychol Sci 17(4):319–325, 2006 ), and better evaluated (Gordon et al. in Pers Individ Differ 50(3):339–343, 2011 ), enabling more stable relationships (Algoe et al. in Pers Relationsh 17(2):217–233, 2010 ; Algoe et al. in Emotion 8(3):425–429, 2008 ; Lambert et al. in Psychol Sci 21(4):574–580, 2010 ). However, no study has extended research beyond individual persons to investigate the impact of one’s gratitude on the mental well-being of those who surround her or him. Thus, we tested this possibility and found in Study 1 that within marriage, husbands’ depositional gratitude negatively correlated with their wives’ depressive emotion. The results of Study 2 validated Study 1 by showing that a wife’s depression would be relatively palliated if her husband was assigned to express appreciation to her and not share daily hassles. While a causal relationship was demonstrated as hypothesized, a difference between genders also emerged. We discuss in particular the latter in terms of its mechanism, limitations, and practical implications for marriage. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013