title: No Evidence That Gratitude Enhances Neural Performance Monitoring or Conflict-Driven Control.
abstract: It has recently been suggested that gratitude can benefit self-regulation by reducing impulsivity during economic decision making. We tested if comparable benefits of gratitude are observed for neural performance monitoring and conflict-driven self-control. In a pre-post design, 61 participants were randomly assigned to either a gratitude or happiness condition, and then performed a pre-induction flanker task. Subsequently, participants recalled an autobiographical event where they had felt grateful or happy, followed by a post-induction flanker task. Despite closely following existing protocols, participants in the gratitude condition did not report elevated gratefulness compared to the happy group. In regard to self-control, we found no association between gratitude--operationalized by experimental condition or as a continuous predictor--and any control metric, including flanker interference, post-error adjustments, or neural monitoring (the error-related negativity, ERN). Thus, while gratitude might increase economic patience, such benefits may not generalize to conflict-driven control processes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: Blair
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Saunders
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: Frank F H
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.|Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Inzlicht
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D004328:Drive; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D055815:Young Adult