A Research Methods Project supervised by Dr. Laura Wilson (Fall 2021)

Erickson, Travis

Pyles, Jiamie

Reyes, Sylvia

Sullivan, Anna

English

Eagle Scholar University of Mary Washington

University of Mary Washington Eagle Scholar Psychology Student Research Showcase 12-1-2021 Effects of Gratitude on Fundamental Attribution Error Anna Sullivan Travis Erickson Jiamie Pyles Sylvia Reyes Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.umw.edu/psychology_showcase Recommended Citation Sullivan, Anna; Erickson, Travis; Pyles, Jiamie; and Reyes, Sylvia, "Effects of Gratitude on Fundamental Attribution Error" (2021). Psychology Student Research Showcase. 83. https://scholar.umw.edu/psychology_showcase/83 This Poster is brought to you for free and open access by Eagle Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Psychology Student Research Showcase by an authorized administrator of Eagle Scholar. For more information, please contact archives@umw.edu. THE EFFECTS OF GRATITUDE ON FUNDAMENTALATTRIBUTION ERRORIntroduction Data Analysis FigureReferences● Gratitude journaling has been gaining traction within recent years as an intervention for mood disorders. (Sansone & Sansone, 2010)● Prior research shows that emotional states (similar to gratitude)  influence decision making (Sachdeva et al., 2009)● Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE): Is a consistent and universal phenomena, where an individual is more likely to attribute a situation to another’s personal traits rather than their situation.Hypotheses1.) Can gratitude journaling reduce an individual's likelihood to commit FAE?2.) Is baseline gratitude trait associated with FAE response?Participants●40 UMW students enrolled in a PSYC 100 course were recruited with the online platform SONA. ●Mean Age = 18.9 years (SD = 2.26)●Predominantly female (75%)●Predominantly Caucasian (82.5%)Procedure●Participants were randomly assigned to either experimental or control group by Qualtrics and completed their surveys in a computer lab on the UMW campus. Measures & Manipulations● GQ-6 Questionnaire: Higher scores are associated with higher levels of trait gratitude (McCullough et al., 2002)● FAE: We adapted an FAE vignette questionnaire to measure results (Weatherly et al.,1999)● Manipulations: Participants were randomly assigned to eitherExperimental Group- Gratitude Journaling (adjusted from Kerr et al., 2015) Control Group- Daily Task Journaling(Cunha et al., 2019)One-Way Analysis of Covariance: Testing FAE propendency between experimental gratitude journaling group and control group, after controlling for baseline gratitude traits.Discussion● Cunha, L. F., Pellanda, L. C., & Reppold, C. T. (2019). Positive psychology and gratitude interventions: A randomized clinical trial. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 584.https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00584● Kerr, S.L., O’Donovan, A. & Pepping, C.A. (2015) Can gratitude and kindness interventions enhance well-being in a clinical sample?. J Happiness Stud 16, 17–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-013-9492-1● McCullough, M. E., Emmons, R. A., & Tsang, J.-A. (2002). The grateful disposition: A conceptual and empirical topography. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(1), 112–127. https://doi-org.umw.idm.oclc.org/10.1037/0022-3514.82.1.112● Sachdeva, S., Iliev, R., & Medin, D. L. (2009). Sinning saints and saintly sinners: the paradox of moral self-regulation. Psychological science, 20(4), 523–528. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02326.x● Sansone, R. A., & Sansone, L. A. (2010). Gratitude and well-being: the benefits of appreciation Psychiatry (Edgmont (Pa. : Township)), 7(11), 18–22.● Weatherly, J. N., Miller, K., & McDonald, T. W. (1999). Social influences as stimulus control. Behavioral and Social Issues, 9, 25-45. http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/bsi.v9i1.135● The current results suggest that neither baseline gratitude trait nor gratitude journaling have a significant effect upon propendency to FAE’s. However, both individuals who had lower baseline gratitude, and were in the control group had higher FAE scores than their counterparts.● These results should be interpreted in the context of several limitations including:● Program Error: Qualtrics failed to properly record answers of zero for the FAE measure causing several responses to be skewed toward higher FAE scores.● Journaling Error: Not enough time for the gratitude journaling to take effect. Typical gratitude journaling studies have individuals journal for a week to a month, our study only had participants journal once. ● Sample Size: While not statistically significant, our prediction that baseline gratitude and gratitude journaling would reduce FAE was accurate, suggesting that a larger sample size would have found significant results.● GQ-6 Trait Disposition: All scores on the GQ-6 questionnaire were extremely high, reducing likelihood of finding a correlation.Our results indicate that there was no association between induced or trait gratitude and FAE. We used the GQ-6 measurement to control for third variable error. ● Hypothesis 1: ○ No significant difference was found in a propensity to commit FAE between our experimental group (M = 47.18, SD = 20.78) and our control group (M = 51.09, SD = 12.73) t(38) = .73, p = .473. ● Hypothesis 2: ○ A bivariate correlation determined that there was no       association of baseline trait gratitude and FAE scores within our experimental group (r = -.32, p = .183) or our control (r = -.06, p = .780. PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENTgreat minds at work: Travis Erickson, Jiamie Pyles, Sylvia Reyes, and Anna Sullivan   (Faculty Advisor: Dr. Wilson)LET’S GOBUILD YOURFUTUREMethodFigure 1 The Effects of Gratitude on Fundamental Attribution Error

Effects of Gratitude on Fundamental Attribution Error

https://scholar.umw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1082&context=psychology_showcase

Effects of Gratitude on Fundamental Attribution Error

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