A continuous appraisal account of gratitude dynamics in social interactions

Gratitude is a fundamental social emotion for interpersonal interaction. Previous studies have identified appraisals of benefactor's behavior and intention, and recipient's benefit as crucial determinants of interpersonal gratitude. However, they largely ignored the continuous appraisal nature of gratitude and left unclear how integrative evaluation of different determinants unfold when a beneficial outcome is not guaranteed. Here we developed an interpersonal interactive paradigm and asked participants to report their feelings at different appraisal stages of the interaction. In Experiment 1 (N = 52 participants), we demonstrated that this paradigm could effectively capture interactions between appraisals of benefactors' behavior and intention, and appraisals of recipients' benefit. In Experiment 2 (Experiment 2a: N = 61; Experiment 2b: N = 150; Experiment 2c: N = 72), we examined the continuous appraisal processes by showing that benefactors' help could substantially elicit recipients' gratitude without the evaluation of benefit, and that the outcome of help decision further interacts with the initial decision to affect recipients' gratitude towards benefactors. In Experiment 3 (Experiment 3a: N = 62; Experiment 3b: N = 150), we generalized the continuous appraisal approach to a more sophisticated context and examined the impact of help efficacy (helpful vs. useless vs. harmful help) on gratitude. Our findings suggest that benefactors' decision to help can elicit gratitude without outcome evaluation, the outcome that is decisively determined by benefactors' help has a strong effect on gratitude, and the outcome that is not directly affected by the help could nevertheless promote or dampen gratitude. Together, the current study advances our understandings of integrative evaluation of different determinants underlying interpersonal gratitude via a continuous appraisal framework.