The Grateful Don't Cheat: Gratitude as a Fount of Virtue

Gratitude has been linked to behaviors involving the exchange of resources; it motivates people to repay debts to benefactors. However, given its links to self-control-itself a necessary factor for repaying debts-the possibility arises that gratitude might enhance other virtues unrelated to exchange that depend on an ability to resist temptation. Here, we examined gratitude's ability to function as a "parent" virtue by focusing on its ability to reduce cheating. Using real-time behavior-based measures of cheating, we demonstrated that gratitude, as opposed to neutrality and the more general positive emotional state of happiness, reduces cheating in both a controlled laboratory setting (N = 156) and a more anonymous online setting (N = 141). This finding suggests that not all moral qualities need to be studied in silos but, rather, that hierarchies exist wherein certain virtues might give rise to seemingly unrelated others.