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How Do Gratitude Interventions Enhance Well-being and Academic Self-Efficacy? A Cross-Cultural Intersectionality Approach

Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Study design: Clinical Trial
Abstract: Recent studies increasingly show the benefits of gratitude interventions for well-being and self-efficacy. However, little is known about how gratitude, culture, and gender shape them among university students, who are mainly the future workforce. Thus, this research aims to understand the mechanisms underlying how a gratitude intervention might differ based on gender and culture by adopting an intersectionality approach. The participants were university students from Germany and Turkey, which enabled a cultural comparison of individualism and collectivism, respectively. A total of 369 university students participated in the study, with 157 residing in Germany and 212 in Turkey. Participants were randomly assigned either to write a gratitude letter to the things that they appreciate in their life or to complete a neutral control writing activity. Then, they were given an immediate post-test that asked about their gratitude levels, positive affect, life satisfaction, and academic self-efficacy. The gratitude intervention significantly increased gratitude and positive affect, but showed no effects on life satisfaction or academic self-efficacy. A three-way interaction of intervention, culture, and gender (p = .013) indicated that only Turkish female students reported higher gratitude, while no significant changes were observed for German students or males. This study highlights the effect of gratitude interventions as a tool for educational and organizational settings. It provides cultural sensitivity regarding the intersection between gender and culture (i.e., being female in a collectivist society) for the specific cases.
DOI: 10.31124/advance.175880168.81390403/v1
Language: English
Field: Psychology
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4414512371
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