No Evidence That Gratitude Enhances Neural Performance Monitoring or Conflict-Driven Control

PLoS One. 2015 Dec 3;10(12):e0143312. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0143312. eCollection 2015.

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.

Publication types

  • Randomized Controlled Trial
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Brain / physiology*
  • Conflict, Psychological*
  • Drive
  • Electroencephalography
  • Emotions / physiology*
  • Evoked Potentials / physiology*
  • Female
  • Happiness
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Memory, Episodic
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This research was made possible by grants from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation and from Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council to Michael Inzlicht.