Expressions of Gratitude,Wishes,and Spending Preferences Among Chinese Children and Adolescents

Abstract

The present study investigated age-related differences in gratitude expression and spending preferences, as well as their relations with wishes among 520 7- to 14-year-old Chinese children and adolescents. Results suggested that older Chinese children were more likely than younger ones to express connective gratitude and that the probability of expressing verbal and concrete gratitude remained stable across ages. In addition, older children tended to spend less money on buying things for others as compared with younger children. Regarding the relations between wish types and gratitude and spending preferences, we found that children who wished for social well-being were more likely to express connective gratitude, and to spend a larger amount of money on charity. In addition, children who had hedonistic wishes were more likely to express concrete gratitude. Findings of the present study contribute to the theoretical understanding of gratitude development among Chinese children and adolescents.

Keywords

gratitude cultural values spending preferences wishes Chinese youth

Virtuous gratitude can be defined as a persisting and reliable disposition to appropriately show sincere gratefulness for favors or gifts given (Carr, Morgan, & Gulliford, 2015; Merçon-Vargas, Poelker, & Tudge, 2018; Tudge, Freitas, & O’Brien, 2015). According to Tudge and colleagues, three features characterize gratitude as a moral virtue: (a) the beneficiary must recognize the benefit provided by a benefactor, (b) the benefit itself is freely and intentionally provided to the beneficiary, and (c) the beneficiary autonomously repays the benefactor with something that the benefactor needs or wants. On the basis of viewing gratitude as a moral virtue, it is clear that gratitude is inherently prosocial and promotive of interpersonal connections. Prior work has found that the beneficiary’s recognition of a benefactor’s help and a desire to repay the benefactor’s kindness strengthens the relationship between the benefactor and the beneficiary (Algoe, Fredrickson, & Gable, 2013), as well as promotes both benefactors’ and beneficiaries’ prosocial behaviors, such as prosocial spending preferences (Kiang, Mendonça, Liang, & Tudge, 2016; McCullough, Kimeldorf, & Cohen, 2008).

Neither gratitude nor prosocial tendencies develop naturally but need to be carefully cultivated. For example, to be able to recognize the benefactor’s intentionality and take the benefactor’s wishes into consideration, the beneficiary should first acquire the ability of perspective taking. To repay the benefactor autonomously, the beneficiary should be encouraged to think and act in accordance with his or her free will (Tudge et al., 2015). Similarly, children’s awareness of others’ needs and sense of agency is related to their prosocial behavior engagement (Carlo, Hausmann, Christiansen, & Randall, 2003; Gagné, 2003). Thus, the development of virtuous gratitude and prosocial tendencies in children and adolescents is profoundly influenced by parents’ socialization of both autonomy and relatedness, which are shaped by cultural values and sociohistorical contexts (Super & Harkness, 2002).

Given the differences in cultural values and parental socialization goals between China and Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010), and the influences that such values and goals have in the formation of virtuous gratitude, the development of prosocial tendencies may vary across cultures (for more detail, see Merçon-Vargas et al., 2018). However, existent research on gratitude as a virtue and prosocial tendency has been largely conducted in WEIRD societies (e.g., the United States, Switzerland). Research on gratitude development and child prosocial spending preferences in Chinese culture is limited. To address this research gap, the present study examines age-related differences in gratitude expression and spending preferences, and how the types of children’s wishes differentially relate to gratitude expression and spending preferences among Chinese youth living in urban areas.

Cultural Variations in Parental Values, Expression of Gratitude, and Spending Preferences in China and the United States

According to Kağıtçıbaşı (2007), parents’ attitudes toward autonomy and relatedness are reflections of cultural traditions and ongoing societal changes, and there is vast heterogeneity in the extent to which a particular society endorses these cultural attitudes (e.g., some cultures are highly autonomous, some are highly related, and some are a blend of both to diverse degrees). Among societies experiencing rapid urbanization and modernization (e.g., China), shifts in people’s life styles and patterns of relationships can be found. Whereas such societies might have more traditionally preferred relational values over autonomous ones, increasing economic developments and societal changes have contributed to a greater coexistence of autonomous and relational socialization goals. Thus, both autonomous and relational socialization goals are highly valued. As such, self-agency and autonomy can be viewed as functional and adaptive, and the close ties between children and their parents, extended kin, and the community at large do not necessarily conflict with the cultivation of self-agency.

In China, urbanization, economic development, and the introduction of Western ideologies have led to changes in people’s attitudes toward independence and autonomy. In these shifting environments, blind obedience and children’s strong loyalty to the family are no longer requirements to be adaptive, and characteristics that could facilitate achievement of personal goals have become increasingly important (Chen & Li, 2012). For instance, research has shown that Chinese parents who perceived more social changes were more likely to promote a strong sense of agency in their children, and help their children feel that they can choose and initiate their own actions to cultivate children’s self-reliance, as compared with parents who perceived less changes (Chen, Bian, Xin, Wang, & Silbereisen, 2010). Moreover, schools in urban areas have recently begun to emphasize the importance of innovation and encourage students to engage in exploratory activities, which may create a more favorable environment for urban parents to adopt values related to self-agency, initiative, and support for autonomy. At the same time, relatedness is also highly valued by urban Chinese parents. Liu and colleagues (2005) observed urban Chinese mothers’ and Canadian mothers’ socialization behaviors, and found that Chinese mothers were relatively more directed to encourage relatedness than were Canadian mothers. Similarly, Keller and colleagues (2006) found that, compared with parents from other societies experiencing rapid urbanizing (e.g., India, Mexico, Costa Rica), Chinese parents in metropolitan cities scored higher on relational-parenting ethnotheories.

In contrast, the United States has been described by Kağıtçıbaşı (2007) as fitting into the independent family model, in which parents attach high levels of importance to autonomous and separate socialization goals (for more detail, see Merçon-Vargas et al., 2018; O’Brien, Mendonça, & Price, 2018). These cultural differences have been reflected in children’s expressions of gratitude. Wang, Wang, and Tudge (2015) found that, as compared with children in the United States, Chinese children were more likely to express connective gratitude, which is considered the most sophisticated type of gratitude as the benefactor’s feelings and wishes are taken into account by the beneficiary. To our knowledge, this is the only study examining gratitude development in China. Given that the Chinese results reported by Wang et al. were strikingly different from the results in Switzerland, the United States, and Brazil, it would be helpful to further explore the construct of gratitude with other and more diverse Chinese samples. As Wang and colleagues pointed out, their Chinese sample came from a relatively poor neighborhood in a large Chinese city. Thus, efforts to broaden the study of gratitude development with a socioeconomically diverse sample in China are necessary to contribute to better understanding how gratitude is formed among understudied contexts.

Regarding spending preferences among children and adolescents, previous research has provided evidence of a positive relation between North American children’s gratitude and preferences for donating money to charity, and a negative association between materialism and preferences for giving money to the poor (Kiang et al., 2016). However, very limited research has examined relations among gratitude, materialism, and prosocial spending preferences in Chinese children and adolescents. Investigating such key questions could also promote a greater understanding of gratitude and related processes among underresearched Chinese youth.

The Present Study

The current study extends existing research on the development of virtuous gratitude in China by examining age differences in expressions of gratitude, and relations between wish types and gratitude among children and adolescents from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Based on prior research (e.g., Wang et al., 2015) as well as the Chinese cultural emphasis on relatedness, we anticipate that there will be a relatively high percentage of Chinese children expressing connective gratitude over the other forms of gratitude (e.g., concrete and verbal gratitude).

With regard to developmental trends in expressions of gratitude, we expect that the probability of expressing connective gratitude increases with age, whereas expressions of verbal and concrete gratitude remain stable across age. From a developmental perspective, as children age, their ability to think abstractly increases; such an ability allows them to better anticipate the future along with superior perspective-taking (e.g., what might a benefactor enjoy, how would the benefactor feel if a favor could be returned). With advanced cognitive development, children are also better able to engage in prosocial moral reasoning, which encourages prosocial behavior (Carlo et al., 2003). Therefore, we also expect that age will be positively related to children’s prosocial spending preferences, such as giving money to charity and buying gifts for others. In addition, based on Kiang and colleagues’ (2016) research findings, we hypothesize that, controlling for age and gender, hedonistic wishes will be positively associated with preferences for buying things, and saving, whereas social-oriented wishes will be positively related to prosocial spending, such as giving gifts and giving resources to the poor.

Data Collection Procedures and Participants

We recruited participants in Guangxi province, located in the southern region of China. Guangxi is a densely populated region with over 47 million residents (The Sixth Chinese Population Census, 2010). Guilin, the city where we collected data, is a city with a two-thousand-year history. In 214 BC, due to the construction of the Lingqu Canal, the first canal in the world, the Guilin area became a gateway between central China and the Lingnan region (current Guangdong, Guangxi and part Hunan, Jiangxi). In 111 BC, in the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the first administration was set up in Guilin, known as Shi An County. It was one of the major economic, political, and cultural centers for southwestern China from Song Dynasty to Qing Dynasty (960 AD to 1911 AD). After the economic reforms, Guilin has become a new developing zone with fine chemical engineering, biological medicine, new materials, environmental protection, and other industries (Guilin, 2015; Xu, 2010).

Participants were recruited from two elementary and two middle schools in three different school districts, which were selected to capture the city’s socioeconomic diversity. Fliers and consent documents were distributed after parent–teacher conferences. Consent documents informed parents that they would be providing their demographic information and completing a questionnaire regarding their parental values. During school time, copies of child assent and questionnaires (i.e., The Wishes and Gratitude Survey and Imaginary Windfall, see Tudge, Freitas, O’Brien, & Mokrova, 2018) were sent to children whose parents granted permission for them to participate. After children provided their own assent, a trained research assistant administered the set of questionnaires in the children’s classroom. The research assistant provided explanations to participants who needed help with understanding questionnaires’ instructions, addressed participants’ concerns about the study, and ensured that participants were not disturbed by others while completing the questionnaires.

Our sample consists of 520 families, within which 488 parents provided their demographic information. As shown in Table 2, children were 56% female with a mean age of 10.6 years (SD = 2.09). Parents were predominantly female (65% mothers, 35% fathers). The sample is diverse in terms of parents’ socioeconomic backgrounds, with 36% of the parents having earned at least a junior college degree (see Table 1). In our sample, parents had completed an average of 12 years of education. According to the 2010 Chinese census data, the average years of education for the population age 6 and above was 8.8 years (The Sixth Chinese Population Census, 2010).

Table 1.

Parents’ Educational Levels (N = 488).

	Mother		Father		Different caregiver
	Frequency	%	Frequency	%	Frequency	%
Elementary	29	9.1	15	8.8
Middle school	79	24.9	38	22.4	1	100
Some high school	37	11.7	15	8.8
Completed high school	56	17.7	34	20.0
Junior college	81	25.6	43	25.3
Completed college	28	8.8	20	11.8
MS or equivalent	1	0.3	1	0.6
PhD or equivalent	0	0	1	0.6
Missing	6	1.90	3	1.8
Total	317		170		1

Note. % = percentage of parents’ educational level.

Table 2.

Descriptive Statistics for Continuous Variables Age and Spending Preferences (N = 520).

Variables	Male		Female		All
Variables	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Age	10.40	2.07	10.76	2.09	10.60	2.09
Spending preferences
Buy for self	15.16	12.62	14.74	12.41	14.92	12.49
Gifts for others	13.87	12.12	15.40	12.46	14.73	12.32
Save	37.09	27.75	37.30	25.76	37.20	26.63
Give to charity	33.73	25.31	32.18	25.83	32.86	25.59

Note. In this sample, there are 290 females and 230 males.

Children’s answers to the first and second questions of the The Wishes and Gratitude Survey were coded by two native Chinese speakers who received identical training. The first coder coded all the answers; the second coder independently coded 30% of the answers which were randomly selected by the first coder. The intercoder reliabilities (Cohen’s Kappa) range from .90 to .96, representing a strong agreement between the two coders.

Results

Descriptive and Preliminary Analyses

Table 2 includes descriptive statistics for children’s age and spending preferences. As shown, the most common spending preference was to save money for the future, followed by giving to charity. It is noteworthy that boys preferred to spend less money on buying gifts for others, and to spend more money on themselves, than girls did.

Table 3 presents the frequency and percentage of each type of wishes and gratitude children expressed. Because some children expressed more than one type of wish or gratitude, the sum of each category exceeded 100%. The majority of Chinese children expressed wishes related to self well-being (66.7%). With regard to expressions of gratitude, the proportion of Chinese children expressing connective gratitude was 69.8%.

Table 3.

Descriptive Statistics for Binary Variables Wishes and Gratitude (N = 520).

	Male		Female		All
	Frequency	%	Frequency	%	Frequency	%
Wishes
Hedonistic	50	21.7	64	22.1	114	21.9
Self well-being	153	66.5	194	66.9	347	66.7
Other well-being	43	18.7	62	21.4	105	20.2
Total	246	106.9	320	110.4	566	108.8
Gratitude
Verbal	54	23.6	84	29.0	138	26.5
Concrete	36	15.7	45	15.5	81	15.6
Connective	156	67.8	207	71.4	363	69.8
Total	246	107.1	336	115.9	582	111.9

Note. % = percentage of children expressing that type of wish/gratitude. Some percentages sum to greater than 100 because some children expressed more than one type of wish/gratitude.

Relations Between Age, Gender, Wishes, and Gratitude

A series of binomial logistic regression analyses examined main effects of age, gender, and wish types on gratitude (for further details, see Tudge et al., 2018). Three types of gratitude were used as dichotomous dependent variables (participants who expressed vs. did not express each type of gratitude) in three separate models. Given that age and gender have been identified as robust correlates of gratitude (e.g., Kashdan, Mishra, Breen, & Froh, 2009; Wang et al., 2015), we explored the effects of three types of wishes on each type of gratitude above and beyond the effects of age and gender.

As shown in Table 4, age was positively linked to connective gratitude, χ²(1) = 19.25, B = 0.12, e^B = 1.24, p < .001, indicating that older children were more likely than younger ones to express connective gratitude. However, we did not find any age-related differences in verbal and concrete gratitude. That is, the probability of expressing verbal and concrete gratitude remained stable across ages. In addition, results showed that gender did not emerge as a significant predictor of any type of gratitude.

Table 4.

Logistic Regression Analyses of Age, Gender, and Wish Type on Types of Gratitude (N = 520).

Predictor	Gratitude types
	Verbal			Concrete			Connective
	B	SE B	e^B	B	SE B	e^B	B	SE B	e^B
Age	−0.08	0.05	0.92	−0.02	0.06	0.98	0.22	0.05	1.24***
Gender	0.32	0.20	1.37	−0.03	0.25	0.98	0.07	0.20	1.07
Wish type
Hedonistic	0.17	0.42	1.18	1.18	0.47	3.26*	0.08	0.47	1.08
Self well-being	0.08	0.39	1.08	0.69	0.44	2.00	0.68	0.44	1.98
Other well-being	−0.02	0.36	0.98	0.42	0.40	1.52	0.99	0.43	2.70*
Nagelkerke R²		.01			.02			.09
χ²		5.16			6.68			33.90***

Note. e^B = exponentiated B. Gender coded male = 0, female = 1, wish types coded no = 0, yes = 1. Reference group set to first for gender and all wish types. Step 2 of analyses included in table.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

With regard to main effects of wish type, we found that wishes related to social well-being were significantly linked to connective gratitude, χ²(1) = 5.31, B = 0.99, e^B = 2.70, p < .05, after controlling for age and gender. This result suggests that children who wished for social well-being were more likely to express connective gratitude. In addition, children who had hedonistic wishes were 3 times more likely to express concrete gratitude than those who did not have hedonistic wishes, χ²(1) = 6.22, B = 1.18, e^B = 3.26, p < .05.

Links Between Age, Gender, Wishes, and Spending Preferences

Four separate linear regression analyses were run for exploring associations between age, gender, wish types, and each of the four categories of spending preferences. As shown in Table 5, children’s desire to buy gifts for family and friends decreased with age (β = −.11, p < .05). In addition, on a trend level, older children tended to spend more money on buying things for themselves as compared with younger children (β = .09, p < .10).

Table 5.

Regression Analyses of Age, Gender, and Wish Type on Spending Preferences (N = 520).

Predictor	Buy for oneself			Gifts for others			Save			Give to charity
Predictor	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β	B	SE	β
Age	0.05	0.03	.09^†	−0.06	0.03	−.11*	−0.04	0.06	−.03	0.06	0.06	.05
Gender	−0.05	0.11	−.02	0.17	0.11	.07	0.05	0.24	.01	−0.20	0.23	−.04
Wish type
Hedonistic	−0.04	0.23	−.01	0.09	0.23	.03	0.12	0.49	.02	−0.16	0.47	−.03
Self well-being	>–0.01	0.21	>–.01	0.27	0.21	.10	−0.12	0.45	−.02	−0.17	0.43	−.03
Other well-being	−0.38	0.19	−.12^†	0.13	0.19	.04	−0.59	0.41	−.09	0.85	0.39	.13*
R ²		.02			.02			.01			.03
F		2.02			2.25*			0.98			2.85*

Note. Step 2 of analyses included in table.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

As hypothesized, wishing for social well-being was positively linked to the amount of money children gave to charity (β = .13, p < .05). That is, children who had social well-being wishes were more likely to spend a larger amount of money on charity than those who did not have wishes related to social well-being. In addition, as a general trend, children who wished for others’ well-being also tended to express less desire to buy things for themselves (β = −.12, p < .10).

Discussion

Examination of the development of gratitude in China has great potential to yield important implications for the theoretical understanding of linkages between cultural values and moral development among children and adolescents. This study is unique in offering a Chinese perspective to the development of gratitude and culture. More specifically, we investigated age-related differences in gratitude expression, as well as relations between wish types and gratitude expression in China with a socioeconomically diverse sample. In addition, we examined relations between children’s types of wishes and their spending preferences, in terms of buying things for themselves, buying gifts for others, saving, and giving to charity.

We found that Chinese children tended to prefer saving their money and giving to charity, over spending money on buying things for themselves. In addition, around 70% of the Chinese children expressed connective gratitude. Chinese children’s expression of gratitude and spending preferences are associated with cultural values and parents’ socialization goals. Gratitude is deeply embedded in Chinese culture. There are Chinese idioms emphasizing the obligation to remember the benefactor for a lifelong time and to return the favor when possible. For instance, the idiom says “make a grass knot or a jade ring to repay kindness (结草衔环),” and a Chinese proverb states “a drop of beneficent water should be repaid with overflowing fountains of gratitude (滴水之恩涌泉相报).” Considering that gratitude has been given a central position in Chinese philosophical theories and tradition, it is not surprising that the majority of Chinese youth express connective gratitude, which is considered the most sophisticated form of gratitude and conceptually closest to the idea of gratitude as a moral virtue.

In terms of the basic types of wishes that Chinese children express, we found that two thirds expressed self-oriented wishes. We further explored subcategories of wishes that Chinese children expressed. Results indicated that most Chinese children’s self-oriented wishes were related to their education and career goals (e.g., attain a college degree, become a teacher). Children’s emphasis on their educational and career goals may reflect the current cultural values and social changes in urban China. Over the past several decades, China has experienced rapid societal and political changes as the government carried out key economic reforms. On one hand, the transition to a market economy poses an increasing number of challenges to families and individuals as they experience an unfamiliar and rapidly changing environment and strive to meet the demands of the new context (Chen et al., 2010; Zhang & Fuligni, 2006). On the other hand, the economic and political reform markedly enhances life chances and quality in China. In the new context, personal development and success become increasingly important (Zeng & Greenfield, 2015). Therefore, children growing up in this context may express more wishes related to their education and personal goals than other types of wishes.

Recall that according to Kağıtçıbaşı (2007), both autonomy and relatedness goals are highly valued in countries like China that are experiencing urbanization. Furthermore, urban educated Chinese parents tend to encourage cooperative behaviors as well as personal agency both of which are important building blocks of virtuous gratitude (Tudge et al., 2015) and prosocial tendencies (Knight, Carlo, Basilio, & Jacobson, 2015; Lai, Siu, & Shek, 2015). The findings suggest that, even among urban contexts where autonomy values might be increasingly emphasized, values of relatedness continue to be socialized and valued. Thus, our results support Kağıtçıbaşı’s (2007) theory in that values of autonomy and relatedness are not diametrically opposed and, in fact, can function in cohesive and integrative ways among urbanized Chinese contexts. These patterns are also consistent with previous developmental research on gratitude in Chinese children in which connective gratitude and self-oriented wishes surrounding academic achievement were common (Wang et al., 2015).

With regard to age differences in children’s expression of gratitude, our results revealed that older children were more likely than younger ones to express connective gratitude. Children’s capacities to understand others’ intentionality and think nonegocentrically increase with age; therefore, older children are able to repay their benefactors with something that the benefactors would value (Freitas, Pieta, & Tudge, 2011). In addition, consistent with Wang and colleagues’ (2015) findings, the probability of expressing concrete gratitude remained relatively stable across age. This pattern is different than what O’Brien et al. (2018) found with a North American sample, suggesting distinct socialization strategies for virtuous gratitude in different cultures. Chinese parents were perhaps more oriented toward the encouragement of relatedness behaviors than were North American parents (Liu et al., 2005), which led to a higher probability of connective gratitude in Chinese children than in U.S. children.

In terms of relations between wish types and gratitude, results showed that children who wished for social well-being were more likely to express connective gratitude than those who did not have such wishes. In addition, we found a positive relation between other-oriented wishes and preferences to give to charity. Hence, Chinese children’s helping intentions and expression of connective gratitude appear to be closely related to caring about others’ welfare and feeling connected to others. More generally, these results are consistent with those found among WEIRD samples and could therefore reflect relatively universal processes related to social connectedness (Froh, Bono, & Emmons, 2010).

In sum, the current study is an important first step to better understand cultural differences and similarities in the development of virtuous gratitude. More importantly, our findings regarding positive linkages between social-oriented wishes and connective gratitude, as well as preferences to give to charity, provide implications for possible interventions aiming at promoting children’s prosocial tendencies and moral development by highlighting factors (e.g., encouragement of social integration, caring about others’ welfare, etc.) that may facilitate these positive developments.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Support for the writing of this paper and for the data collected was generously provided by the John Templeton Foundation (Grant # 43510 to Jonathan Tudge, PI).

Author Biographies

Yue Liang is a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. After completing her master degree in psychology in Beijing Normal University, she moved to the United States to pursue a doctoral degree. She is currently working with Dr. Jonathan Tudge at the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, and studying development of gratitude among Chinese and Chinese immigrant children and adolescents.

Lisa Kiang is a professor of psychology at Wake Forest University. She received her PhD from the University of Denver. Her area of research is in cultural identity and social relationships, with an emphasis on positive well-being in ethnically diverse adolescents.

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