Gratitude exercise enhances gratitude-related feelings and positive affect among Japanese workers

Introduction
Few individual-focused interventions that focus on enhancing the well-being of employees, have been conducted in the workplace. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of worksite intervention consisting of a gratitude exercise on employees’ gratitude-related feelings, positive affect, life satisfaction, and subjective happiness among Japanese workers.

Methods
Seventy-six Japanese daytime local-government employees were recruited to participate in the study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: the Gratitude group or control group. Participants in the Gratitude group were asked to write down up to five people at work or in one’s personal life to whom the participant was grateful or thankful during the past week, and participants in the control group were asked to write down up to five events that occurred at work or in one’s personal life during the past week, for 4 weeks. Gratitude-related feelings, positive affect, life satisfaction, and subjective happiness were measured at three times, i.e., at baseline, immediately post-intervention, and 1 month after the intervention.

Results
Two-way mixed-model ANOVA revealed that the main effects of ‘time’ were significant for gratitude-related feelings and positive affect. Multiple comparisons with the Bonferroni method indicated that that there were significantly higher levels of gratitude-related feelings and positive affect at one-month-follow-up compared with that at baseline. No significant effects were observed on life satisfaction and subjective happiness.

Discussion
Considering Cohen’s d, gratitude exercise in which participants list up to five people to whom the participant is grateful or thankful every week might be effective in increasing gratitude-related feelings. However, results also indicated that positive affect increased in both the Gratitude and control groups. Since 18 of the 19 participants in the control group wrote more than one positive event over the 4-week period, a similar effect might have occurred on positive affect in the control group.