GRATITUDE AND RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTION

Effects of Gratitude on Relationship Satisfaction

Kristen Marani

Department of Psychology, University of Michigan

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Abstract

Romantic relationships are a key part of life for many individuals and often have a major impact

on one’s wellbeing, and so it is important to identify factors that can improve the quality of one’s

romantic relationship. In this study, we explored the effects of gratitude on relationship

satisfaction through having participants from MTurk complete a virtual activity focusing on their

gratitude towards their partner and then answering questions related to how satisfied they were in

the relationship. Our study found that gratitude had no effect on relationship satisfaction, perhaps

due to limitations in the study or perhaps because gratitude is not as impactful as previous

research suggests.

Keywords: Gratitude, relationship satisfaction, romantic relationships

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Effects of Gratitude on Relationship Satisfaction

In this study, we examined how gratitude affects romantic relationships. Romantic

relationships are some of the most important social interactions for adults (Lavner & Bradbury,

2010), compared to other types of relationships, and have been shown to influence individual

wellbeing and life satisfaction (Roberson et al., 2018). Therefore, it is important to learn more

about factors that can affect and improve our romantic relationships, as doing so could also

improve wellbeing and life satisfaction, and gratitude is one of these factors.

Romantic relationships offer unique benefits. Romantic relationships are defined as

intimate relationships involving romantic love and affection, which is an affective state

consisting of both passionate and compassionate love. Romantic love has been found to be a

human universal and is experienced by people in all cultures; in Western cultures, over 90% of

people get married (which can be seen as a long-term committed romantic relationship) by age

50 (Jankowiak & Fischer, 1992). Additionally, married people report greater wellbeing on

average than single individuals do (Diener et al., 2000). Furthermore, by early adulthood, people

spend more time with their romantic partners than with their platonic friends (Reis et al., 1993).

Studies have found that having strong romantic relationships is associated with greater happiness

and improvements in mental health, compared to those who do not have romantic relationships

(Diener & Seligman, 2002). Finally, a study by Kawamichi and colleagues found that romantic

relationships are associated with greater happiness and a greater reduction in grey matter density

in the brain than with platonic relationships (2016). Clearly romantic relationships are very

different from close platonic relationships and have a major impact on one’s life, which makes it

important to study these relationships.

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In this study, we defined gratitude as feeling appreciative and thankful towards one’s

partner. The find-remind-bind theory suggests that gratitude helps us find good romantic

partners, remind us of our reasons for being with our partners, and motivate us to keep our

partners around (Algoe, 2008). Additionally, a study by Algoe and colleagues (2010) found that

gratitude was associated with increased relationship quality. They found no significant difference

across age or gender for these results, though other confounding variables such as sexual

orientation were not addressed. This literature suggests that gratitude can be helpful to a

relationship at all ages, which is why it’s important to study participants from a variety of age

groups. However, adolescent romantic relationships are reported to be less stable and less

committed than adult romantic relationships (Shulman et al., 1997), which is why we will only

look at adults in this study. While these are all important findings, most of the research done on

gratitude has used a correlational design, indicating that there is a need for more experimental

research to be done in order to prove causality.

The present study seeks to explore the effects of gratitude on relationship satisfaction.

Based on previous research, we hypothesized that participants who were directed to reflect on

their gratitude towards their partner would report higher relationship satisfaction than

participants in the control group. Ultimately, this study sought to identify a potential way for

people in romantic relationships to improve the quality of their relationship and how satisfied

they are with it.

Methods

Participants

The participants for this study were selected from a representative sample using MTurk,

in order to gather data on adults of a variety of ages and get a variety of relationship lengths and
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statuses. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is an online space where workers can respond to

surveys and complete other tasks for payment, which is commonly used in research to provide a

diverse sample and fast collection of data. The participants all must have been in a committed

romantic relationship for at least 3 months and be at least 18 years old. These criteria helped

screen for stable and committed romantic relationships. Participation was completely voluntary

and participants could decline to answer any question. Participants were compensated for their

participation in this study.

Out of 47 participants, 24 identified as female (53.3%) and 21 identified as male (46.7%),

while 2 declined to answer. In terms of race, 33 participants identified as white or European

American (73.3%), 5 identified as Black or African-American (11.1%), 5 identified as Asian

(11.1%), 1 identified as white, American Indian, and Asian (2.2%), 1 identified as white and

Asian (2.2%), and 2 declined to answer. Participant ages ranged from 18 years old to 70 years

old (M = 34.86, SD = 13.28).

Procedure

Participants took an online survey on Qualtrics, which began with a consent form. They

filled out an informed consent form and answered a question about their current romantic

relationship status, to screen for participants who are in a relationship. After giving informed

consent to participating in the study, they were randomly assigned to either the gratitude

condition or the control condition. In the gratitude condition, participants were asked to write

down a list of five times their partner did something thoughtful for them, and then write a short

paragraph describing how those thoughtful actions made them feel towards their partner. This

was meant to give them the opportunity to reflect on the kind actions of their partner and feel

gratitude and appreciation towards them. Participants in the control condition were asked to write
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down a list of five basic descriptors about their partner, such as their job or hair color. This was

designed to control for gratitude because participants in both conditions completed a writing

activity about their partner. After completing one of these activities, participants were given a

short survey about their relationship. Next, participants answered questions about demographic

variables, such as gender, age, and length of relationship, so that we could control for those

factors if needed. Finally, participants were thanked for participating in the study.

Measures

Relationship Satisfaction

We measured relationship satisfaction using the Hendrick’s Relationship Assessment

Scale (Hendrick et al., 1988). This measure has good construct validity because it has strong

convergent validity, showing high correlations with measures of marital satisfaction (Hendrick et

al., 1988). It has also been found to have strong internal reliability (Hendrick et al., 1988). Each

of the 7 questions uses a five-point Likert scale, where 1 is low (more negative) and 5 is high

(more positive responses). Sample items include: “How well does your partner meet your

needs?” and “How much do you love your partner?”. Two questions were reverse-coded to

ensure that participants were accurately reading and responding to the study. Using the responses

to these questions, we created a composite variable to give each participant an average

relationship satisfaction score between 1 and 5.

Demographic Information

We operationalized gender through a question asking participants to self-report their

gender, in which they will choose between male, female, and other. Age was measured in years

since birth, and length of relationship was measured in approximate months or years since the

relationship began.
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Results

Although 50 people responded to the survey and participated in our experiment, after

screening for relationship length and removing participants who did not respond to all questions,

our final sample size for analysis was 47. After conducting an independent sample t-test with a

significance level of 0.05, we found that there was no significant difference between the

relationship satisfaction scores in the control condition and the experimental condition, t(43) =

-0.61, p = 0.55. This means that both groups of participants had similar levels of relationship

satisfaction, regardless of whether they completed the gratitude activity or not.

Discussion

The goals of our study were to examine the effects of gratitude on relationship

satisfaction. We hypothesized that participants who reflected upon their gratitude towards their

partner would show higher reported relationship satisfaction than participants in the control

group who did not do so. Based on the results of our t-test, we found that our experimental

manipulation did not have a significant effect, as there was no difference in relationship

satisfaction scores between participants in the control group and participants in the experimental

group. This data did not support our hypothesis, as gratitude about partnerships did not lead to

higher relationship satisfaction.

Due to the nature of conducting this experiment via a survey, as well as having a

representative sample with participants of a variety of ages and genders, our study had somewhat

good external validity. Our population of interest was people in romantic relationships of at least

3 months, and all our participants were in this population. We also had decent internal validity

due to randomly assigning participants to groups in our experiment and manipulating the
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questions that the control and experimental groups were asked. Our scale to measure relationship

satisfaction also had excellent internal reliability (Cronbach’s 𝛼 = 0.94).

There were several limitations in our study. Possible explanations for why we did not find

any difference between the groups could be that our manipulation did not isolate gratitude

appropriately. Perhaps simply asking participants to think about their partner and list factual

descriptors created some sort of gratitude in the control group. It’s possible that the wording of

the question was not specific enough, as a few participants in the control group listed their

feelings for their partners as a factual descriptor, which may have promoted gratitude in the

participants. Additionally, perhaps there was not enough difference between the control group

and the experimental group, in order to inspire enough gratitude in participants to create a

significant difference in relationship satisfaction. Finally, perhaps participants in less satisfied

relationships avoided participating in this survey, and so there was less room for gratitude to

make an impact on relationship satisfaction because most participants were already very satisfied

with their relationships.

In future research, the gratitude condition could be made longer and more in depth, in

order to promote greater feelings of gratitude. The control condition could be less

partner-specific and more of a general writing task, in order to better isolate feelings of gratitude

to the experimental condition. A larger sample size may also help create a greater difference

between groups. Finally, a better method of testing the effects of gratitude on relationship

satisfaction could be to measure relationship satisfaction both before and after participants are

assigned to either the control or gratitude condition, then see if their results change. This would

study how individuals are affected by the manipulations rather than examining the entire group at

once, and so could reduce some variability.

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Although our experiment did not have the desired outcome and results, it has shown that

studying gratitude may be more difficult than it appears and raised questions about the best

methods for studying gratitude in the field of psychology. Our results also show that perhaps

gratitude does not have as dramatic an effect on relationship satisfaction and quality as previous

research has led us to believe.

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References

Algoe, S. B. (2012). Find, remind, and bind: The functions of gratitude in everyday relationships.

Social and Personality Psychology Compass,6(6), 455-469.

Algoe, S. B., Gable, S. L., & Maisel, N. C. (2010). It's the little things: Everyday gratitude as a

booster shot for romantic relationships. Personal Relationships,17(2), 217-233.

Diener, E., Gohm, C. L., Suh, E., & Oishi, S. (2000). Similarity of the relations between marital

status and subjective Well-being across cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,

31(4), 419-436.

Hendrick, S. S., Dicke, A., & Hendrick, C. (1988). The Relationship Assessment Scale. Journal

of Social and Personal Relationships, 15(1), 137–142.

Jankowiak, W. R., & Fischer, E. F. (1992). A cross-cultural perspective on romantic love.

Ethnology, 31(2), 149.

Kawamichi, H., Sugawara, S. K., Hamano, Y. H., Makita, K., Matsunaga, M., Tanabe, H. C., . . .

Sadato, N. (2016). Being in a romantic relationship is associated with reduced gray

matter density in striatum and increased subjective happiness. Frontiers in

Psychology (14), 7-17.

Lavner, J. A., & Bradbury, T. N. (2010). Patterns of change in marital satisfaction over the
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Newlywed years. Journal of Marriage and Family,72(5), 1171-1187.

Roberson, P. N., Norona, J. C., Lenger, K. A., & Olmstead, S. B. (2018). How do Relationship

Stability and Quality Affect Wellbeing? Romantic Relationship Trajectories, depressive

symptoms, and life satisfaction across 30 years. Journal of Child and Family Studies,

27(7), 2171-2184.

Shulman, S., Collins, W. A., & Knafo, D. (1997). Afterword: Romantic relationships in

adolescence—more than casual dating. New Directions for Child and Adolescent

Development, 1997(78), 105-110.

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Appendix A

Qualtrics Survey Administered to Participants

Effects of Gratitude on
Relationship Satisfaction

Start of Block: Consent form

Q1
Hello. I am an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan. In this study, you will
be asked to respond to questions about any romantic relationships that you are currently
part of.

Your information will be kept confidential. No one will know what you have answered.
Participation in this study is completely voluntary. You can decline to answer any questions
in this study. If you decide to participate now and change your mind later, you can opt out
of the study at any time.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at kmarani@umich.edu.

Q2 Do you consent to participating in this study?

o Yes (1)

o No (2)

End of Block: Consent form

Start of Block: Relationship Status

Q3 Are you currently in a clearly defined romantic relationship?

o Yes (1)
GRATITUDE AND RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTION
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o Maybe (2)

o No (3)

End of Block: Relationship Status

Page 1 of 7
Start of Block: Relationship Length

Q22 How long have you been in this romantic relationship?

oLess than 3 months (1)

o3 months - 1 year (2)
o1 year - 5 years (3)
o5 years or longer (4)
End of Block: Relationship Length

Start of Block: Control condition

Q9 Please list five factual descriptors about your partner. These can be physical
descriptors, such as height or hair color, or lifestyle descriptors, such as occupation or
interests.

______________________________________________________________

__

______________________________________________________________

__

______________________________________________________________

__

______________________________________________________________

__

______________________________________________________________
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__

End of Block: Control condition

Start of Block: Gratitude Condition

Q8 Please list five times your partner did something thoughtful or kind for you. You can be
as specific or as vague as you like.

______________________________________________________________

__

______________________________________________________________

__

______________________________________________________________

__

______________________________________________________________

__

______________________________________________________________

__

Page 2 of 7
Q10 When your partner did these thoughtful things, how did it make you feel?

______________________________________________________________

__

______________________________________________________________

__

______________________________________________________________

__

______________________________________________________________

__

______________________________________________________________
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__

End of Block: Gratitude Condition

Start of Block: Relationship Satisfaction

Q11 How well does your partner meet your needs?

o Extremely well (5)

o Very well (4)

o Moderately well (3)

o Slightly well (2)

o Not well at all (1)

Page 3 of 7
Q12 In general, how satisfied are you with your

relationship? o Extremely satisfied (5)

o Somewhat satisfied (4)

o Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied (3)

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o Somewhat dissatisfied (2)

o Extremely dissatisfied (1)

Q13 How good is your relationship compared to

most? o Extremely good (5)

o Somewhat good (4)

o Neither good nor bad (3)

o Somewhat bad (2)

o Extremely bad (1)

Q14 How often do you wish you hadn’t gotten in this

relationship? o Very often (5)

o Moderately often (4)

o Somewhat often (3)

o Occasionally (2)

o Rarely (1)

Page 4 of 7

Q15 To what extent has your relationship met your original

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expectations? o Completely (5)

o Mostly (4)

o Average (3)

o Slightly (2)

o Not at all (1)

Q16 How much do you love your partner?

o A great deal (5)

o A lot (4)

o A moderate amount (3)

o A little (2)

o None at all (1)

Page 5 of 7
Q17 How many problems are there in your
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relationship? o A lot (5)

o Several (4)

o Some (3)

o Few (2)

o None (1)

End of Block: Relationship

Satisfaction Start of Block:

Demographics

Q6 How would you describe your

gender? o Woman (1)

o Man (2)

o Gender Non-conforming (3)

o Non-Binary (4)

o Trans (5)

o Not listed (6)

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Page 6 of 7
Q23 How would you describe your race?

▢ White (1)

▢ Black or African American (2)

▢ American Indian or Alaska Native (3)

▢ Asian (4)

▢ Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (5)

▢ Not listed (6)

Q7 What is your age?

▼ 18 (8) ... Older than 100 (91)

End of Block: Demographics

Start of Block: End of Study

Q20 We thank you for your time spent taking this survey.

Your MTurk compensation code is:

w21rabinow!

To receive payment for participating, click "Accept HIT" in the Mechanical Turk window,
enter this validation code, then click "Submit".

End of Block: End of Study

Page 7 of 7
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Appendix B

Statistical Output
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