Big Five Personality Traits and Gratitude: The Role of Emotional Intelligence

Among many possible variables that can be associated with gratitude, researchers list personality traits. Considering that these relationships are not always consistent, the first purpose of the present study was to verify how the Big Five factors connect to dispositional gratitude in a sample of Polish participants. The second purpose was to assess the unique contribution of personality traits on gratitude with multiple regression analyses. Moreover, because much remains to be learned about whether these associations are indirectly influenced by different personal or social variables, the third goal was to explore the role of emotional intelligence as a potential mediational mechanism implicated in the relationship between personality traits and gratitude.

The sample consisted of 712 Polish respondents who were aged between 17 and 88. Most of them were women (64.3%). They answered questionnaires concerning their personality traits, emotional intelligence, and gratitude. The research was conducted using the paper-and-pencil method through convenience sampling.

The results showed that both gratitude and emotional intelligence correlated positively and significantly with extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Gratitude and emotional intelligence correlated negatively and significantly with neuroticism. The personality predictor of gratitude with the highest and positive standardized regression value was agreeableness, followed by openness to experience and extraversion. Neuroticism had a negative impact on gratitude. Conscientiousness was the only statistically insignificant predictor in the tested multiple regression model. Moreover, emotional intelligence mediated the relationship between four dimensions of personality (extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) and gratitude and acted as a suppressor between neuroticism and gratitude.

The current study broadens our comprehension of the interaction among personality traits, emotional intelligence, and a grateful disposition. Moreover, it imparts a noteworthy foundation not only for the mediatory role of emotional intelligence between four dimensions of personality and gratitude but also for its suppressor effect between neuroticism and being grateful.