The Development of the Virtue of Gratitude: Theoretical Foundations and Cross-Cultural Issues

The Problem of Implicit Generalization

Most research on gratitude in general, and on the development of gratitude in particular, have used samples from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies (WEIRD; Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010), such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia (Arnett, 2008; Nielsen, Haun, Kärtner, & Legare, 2017; Tomlinson & Swartz, 2003; Tudge & Freitas, 2012). Results from these studies have typically assumed an implicit generalization—scholars usually talk about “children” and “adolescents” without specifying the cultural groups from which the children are drawn, such as North American children drawn from a primarily middle-class and European American population (Arnett, 2008). It is also worth noting that it is common for scholars in some societies to treat results from studies conducted in the United States as relevant to their own country, despite the absence of research on the same topic conducted in their own context (Tudge & Freitas, 2012).

Attention has thus been drawn to the importance of considering cultural influences on human development. For example, a cross-cultural approach to understanding child development provides more variation than can be found in studies that sample from a single homogeneous group (e.g., middle-class European American children) or even from a diverse sample that is drawn from a single society. That is, only if cultural diversity is addressed is it possible to make sense of what is otherwise considered typical and atypical development. This has several implications both for studies implicitly assuming universality and for theories claiming universality (Kağıtçıbaşı, 2007).

In addition, one of the greatest contributions of cross-cultural research is the opportunity to promote greater cultural sensitivity in academic knowledge. Approaching research from a culturally sensitive perspective likely encourages researchers to behave more ethically and responsibly. Such a perspective requires researchers to recognize the value in different experiences and ways of living, which, in turn, may decrease the often implicit idea that dominant values are normative (Kağıtçıbaşı, 2007; Orbuch & Fine, 2003).

These considerations are critical for the study of any developmental process, including how children develop gratitude. It is certainly not reasonable for anyone to assume that developmental pathways to gratitude found in the United States will be found elsewhere, as it is also questionable to think that non-WEIRD cultures will all present similar patterns of gratitude expression. The various articles included in this special issue will provide some evidence for the variability in expression of gratitude that exists in different parts of the world.

Conceptualizing gratitude as a moral virtue, Baumgarten-Tramer (1938) and other scholars using her approach (Freitas et al., 2011; Merçon-Vargas, Pieta, Freitas, & Tudge, 2016; Pieta, 2009; Tudge, Freitas, Mokrova, et al., 2015; Wang, Wang, & Tudge, 2015) have demonstrated the existence of different types of gratitude, varying in degree of proximity to a virtue (as defined), across different ages. These types of gratitude indicate an increasing presence of some elements of gratitude as a moral virtue, such as recognition of a benefactor’s intentionality, an autonomous wish to repay, and the consideration of others’ needs or desires, in contrast to heteronomous reciprocity and/or simple politeness.

One of the advantages of addressing gratitude as a moral virtue is that it focuses on the relation between benefactor and beneficiary (it is, therefore, interpersonal), and not only on the beneficiary’s feelings elicited by the received benefit. Furthermore, the perspective of gratitude as a moral virtue is valuable for the study of the development of gratitude across different cultures. The understanding of how gratitude develops may allow us to better comprehend how morality is developed, how characters are shaped, and in which ways cognitive and moral processes and values are implicated in development (La Taille, 2000, 2018).

How Does Gratitude Develop?

It is not easy trying to disentangle the development of gratitude and other related factors, such as the development of cognitive abilities and environmental conditions that may foster gratitude (e.g., cultural values). From a cognitive developmental perspective,Piaget’s (1932/1965, 1965/1995) notion of morality includes a gradual development from a heteronomous moral orientation (obedience and unilateral relations) to an autonomous moral sense (mutuality and cooperation). This development involves a decentration of the self, increasingly enabling individuals to coordinate different points of view and to engage in more reciprocal relationships.

Whereas heteronomous morality is objective and one of simple duty, autonomous morality is based on mutual respect and reciprocity. However, the development from heteronomous to autonomous morality is by no means straightforward. Thanks to cooperation among peers, young children may develop the sense of autonomous morality, but it coexists with the heteronomous morality learned in dealings with parents and other authority figures (Piaget, 1932/1965). Over time, one or other type of morality will come to predominate, and Piaget considered that human beings, to become fully developed, would become autonomously moral (Freitas, 2003). This developmental process may be considered as essential for the development of gratitude. In line with that, Nelson and colleagues (2013) found that better understanding of emotions and of others’ mental states at age 3 served as precursors to some understanding of gratitude at age 5.

Gratitude, thus, involves cognitively complex abilities and degrees of moral understanding that develop throughout childhood and adolescence (Do Vale, 2012; Freitas, O’Brien, Nelson, & Marcovitch, 2012; Nelson et al., 2013). Time, experience, and encouragement are needed for gratitude to fully develop, with less complex forms of gratitude being present during this process of development (Baumgarten & Tramer, 1938; Freitas et al., 2011; Tudge, Freitas, Mokrova, et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2015).

Baumgarten-Tramer’s (1938) study in Switzerland was the first study addressing different types of gratitude across the ages of 7 to 15. She asked children and adolescents, “What is your greatest wish?” and “What would you do for the person who granted you this wish?” She then derived different types of gratitude expression from the participants’ responses: (a) verbal gratitude, (b) concrete gratitude, reflected in the wish to reciprocate with things important to oneself rather than to the benefactor (which was more typical among younger children), and (c) a more sophisticated type of gratitude (connective) that showed an ability to take the benefactor’s wishes or needs into account (which was more typical among adolescents). A fourth type of gratitude, finalistic (e.g., being an excellent student in return for a scholarship to a good university), was rarely found and only among 14- and 15-year-olds.

This approach is useful to understand the development of gratitude because a desired benefit that is meaningful to the participants is set with the first question (“what is your greatest wish?”). Moreover, the second question allows researchers to assess different ways in which children say they would reciprocate their hypothetical benefactor without imposing any type of answer. With that, it is possible to infer whether children express reciprocation autonomously (taking the benefactor’s needs or wishes into account, such as “I would do anything she needed”), or indicating a simple need of reciprocity (not considering the other’s perspective, such as “I would give him a cookie”), or still only verbally (such as “I would say ‘thank you’”).

We can think of the less complex forms of gratitude (concrete and verbal) as possibly a self-centered way of reciprocation, indicating no evidence of considering what might be desired by or useful to the benefactor. Verbal gratitude may involve an understanding of intentionality and/or an appreciation of the benefactor’s wishes and needs (but without the explicit desire to reciprocate), or could simply involve politeness. Saying “thank you” is something often encouraged by parents even in very young children (Freitas et al., 2011; Visser, 2009). Reciprocity can exist without morality, but morality does not exist without reciprocity; thus, a sense of reciprocity would be necessary for, but not equivalent to, gratitude (Bonnie & de Waal, 2004). This approach is different from seeing gratitude as a positive emotion, given that the aim is not to assess the child’s feeling when the benefit is (hypothetically) received, but what she or he would do in response to gaining such a benefit.

Some scholars have addressed the development of gratitude in other countries using Baumgarten-Tramer’s (1938) approach. These studies suggested that even though age-related changes had similar trends for children in different countries (i.e., Freitas et al., 2011; Merçon-Vargas et al., 2016; Pieta, 2009; Tudge, Freitas, Mokrova, et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2015), some important cultural differences in gratitude expression seem to exist. Consequently, more studies should focus on clarifying the developmental and cultural aspects of gratitude.

Does Gratitude Differ Across Cultural Contexts?

Although gratitude as a virtue may be found and valued in most—if not all—cultures, the extent to which it is valued, considered appropriate to express, and the ways in which it is expressed may differ according to societies’ cultural values (Prinz, 2009; Tiberius, 2004; Tudge, Freitas, & O’Brien, 2015). Overall, gratitude has been examined with limited attention paid to the influence of context (cultural or not), although some studies have shown how different cultures encourage behaviors that may have moral significance, such as helping behaviors (Levine, Norenzayan, & Philbrick, 2001) and politeness (Farashaiyan & Hua, 2012; Naito, Wangwan, & Tani, 2005).

One of the most common frameworks to study cultural differences involves the use of a unidimensional scale bounded by individualism and collectivism (Hofstede, 1980/2001; Triandis, 1989, 1993, 2001). However, several scholars have suggested moving beyond this simplistic view (Kağıtçıbaşı, 2007; Keller, 2007; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002; Strauss, 2000; Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2008). For instance, these authors have shown that both within the United States and other societies there can be found a good deal of support for both individualistic and collectivistic values, suggesting that more attention be paid to within-culture variation (particularly related to socioeconomic but also ethnic, regional, political, or religious factors).

Kağıtçıbaşı’s (2007) orthogonal view of cultural differences may be more helpful to understand in which ways cultural values influence the expression of gratitude as a moral virtue across cultural groups. Kağıtçıbaşı suggested that individualism comprises both an agentic component (autonomy) and a lack of strong ties to others outside the immediate family (separateness). She also argued that the concept of collectivism confounds strong ties with the group (relatedness) and being subject to elders’ rules (heteronomy).

Based on that, Kağıtçıbaşı (2007) proposed two different dimensions of cultural variation: agency (autonomy–heteronomy) and interpersonal distance (related–separate). According to her, parents in countries like the United States and those in Western Europe would mostly value autonomy-separateness. Traditional cultural groups in the “Majority World” (developing societies, where the majority of the world’s children live) would mostly value heteronomy-relatedness, and urbanized and educated groups in Majority World societies would mostly value autonomy-relatedness. From this theoretical perspective, then, values such as autonomy and relatedness are not opposites and can coexist.

Although Kağıtçıbaşı (2007) proposed these as prototypical values for societies, her perspective allows for more cultural variation, given that it considers two cultural dimensions that, in varying degrees, shape the self in particular ways. This can be seen, for example, in socioeconomic-related variations in values in Brazil (e.g., Seidl-de-Moura, Carvalho, & Vieira, 2013; Seidl-de-Moura et al., 2008; Seidl-de-Moura, Mendes, et al., 2013; Tudge, Martins, et al., 2018; Vieira et al., 2010) and ethnic groups in the United States (e.g., Coon & Kemmelmeier, 2001; Suizzo, 2007). In general, Kağıtçıbaşı suggested that her approach can be used to illustrate the fact that there are different types of selves in relation to agency and interpersonal distance, which will then affect different aspects of psychological functioning, including morality.

Thus, the cultural values (or combination of values) proposed by Kağıtçıbaşı (2007) may serve as a cultural framework to understand gratitude as a virtue. It is possible that contexts that encourage children to think and act in a more self-directed way (autonomously), as well as stimulate them to think and act considering the social group (relatedness), will then foster children and adolescents who express gratitude considering others’ points of view and wish to reciprocate autonomously, whenever possible (and not because they were told to).

There is some indirect support for the position that children in countries considered to vary in the agency and interpersonal-distance cultural dimensions express different types of gratitude. For instance, Wang and colleagues (2015) found that children aged 7 to 14 in the United States were 4.2 times less likely to express connective gratitude than were same-aged Chinese children. Different ways in which the expression of gratitude changes across age-groups were also found in these societies—whereas older North American children (aged 11 to 14) were more likely to express verbal gratitude and less likely to express concrete gratitude than were their younger counterparts (aged 7 to 10), in the Chinese sample verbal gratitude decreased with age and concrete gratitude stayed relatively stable (but at lower rates than in the United States).

In the following articles in this special issue, we will address the extent to which children in societies that are assumed to differ on Kağıtçıbaşı’s (2007) cultural dimensions do, indeed, express gratitude differently or similarly from each other. Thus, using Kağıtçıbaşı’s theory as a basis for the hypotheses, we expect that societies more likely to value autonomy-relatedness will have a greater proportion of children expressing connective gratitude (considering the benefactor’s perspective). In contrast, children in societies deemed more likely to value autonomy-separateness will have a greater proportion of children expressing concrete gratitude. It is also important to note that even societies considered to be more likely to value autonomy-relatedness may differ in their expression of gratitude, as these are not fixed and homogeneous categories, but may vary in degrees. It is important, therefore, to move beyond lumping groups into two broad groups represented by contrasting poles. We, therefore, consider it crucial to include diverse societies from varied parts of the world to explore cultural variations in children’s expression of gratitude.

This special issue includes a total of 10 papers, with the following paper (Tudge, Freitas, O’Brien, & Mokrova, 2018) addressing the methods of collecting the data and the basic analytic strategies employed. Using the methodology described in this second article, the seven subsequent articles will address children’s expression of gratitude in Brazil, Guatemala, the United States, China, South Korea, Russia, and Turkey. The authors of each article will acknowledge the particularities of each context and provide culturally appropriate information about each society. The final article in this issue will summarize the results discussed in previous articles, addressing cross-cultural similarities and differences, and discussing the meaning of the findings to the study of the development of gratitude.