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Gratitude

ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS

McCullough, M. E. (2009). Commentary on "Do You Thank the Taxpayer for Your Bailout?" Harvard Business Review (June, 2009) PDF

McCullough, M. E., Kimeldorf, M. B., & Cohen, A. D. (2008). An adaptation for altruism? The social causes, social effects, and social evolution of gratitude. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17, 281-284. PDF

Bono, G. & McCullough M. E. (2006). Positive responses to benefit and harm: Bringing forgiveness and gratitude into cognitive psychotherapy. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 20, 147-158. PDF

Polak, E., & McCullough, M. E. (2006). Is gratitude an alternative to materialism? Journal of Happiness Studies, 7, 343-360. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Tsang, J., & Emmons, R. A. (2004). Gratitude in intermediate affective terrain: Links of grateful moods to individual differences and daily emotional experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 295-309. PDF

Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 377-389. PDF

Kendler, K., Liu, X., Gardner, C. O., McCullough, M. E., & Prescott, C. A. (2003). Dimensions of religiosity and their relationship to lifetime psychiatric and substance abuse disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160, 496-503. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Emmons, R. A., & Tsang, J. (2002). The grateful disposition: A conceptual and empirical topography. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 112-127. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Kilpatrick, S. D., Emmons, R. A., & Larson, D. B. (2001). Is gratitude a moral affect? Psychological Bulletin, 127, 249-266. PDF

MEASURING GRATITUDE

Much of our initial work on gratitude has been devoted to examining the disposition to experience gratitude as a relatively stable affective trait. To measure this affective trait, we have developed a short scale called the Gratitude Questionnaire, whose current incarnation consists of six short self-report items. The GQ-6 is available here for download in PDF format. This document includes some interpretative material that allows one to determine where a person's score on the GQ-6 falls relative to a large sample of adults who recently completed the measure. Finally, this short technical document describes the psychometric properties of the scale, including some of the most important evidence for its reliability and validity.

TRANSLATIONS

German translation by the Personality and Assessment Group at the Dept. of Psychology, University of Zurich. Contact R. Proyer for details.
Chinese translation of the GQ-6 that Joyce Leong at the Chinese University of Hong Kong developed, including the back-translation.
Another Chinese translation of the GQ-6 that Lung Hung Chen and colleagues developed with a sample of Taiwanese undergraduates
Spanish translation of the GQ-6 by Marina Beléndez at the Universidad de Alicante.
Hungarian translation, plus the English back-translation, from Magdolna Garay in the PPKE BTK Psychology Department.
Polish translation, due to Marlena Kossakowska at the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities.
Farsi translation, due to Naser Aghababai at the Department of Psychology, University of Tehran.
Lithuanian translation, due to Eglė Sabaitytė from Mykolas Romeris University.

Other information about measuring gratitude can be located in Emmons, R. A., McCullough, M. E., & Tsang, J. (2003). The assessment of gratitude. In S. J. Lopez and C. R. Snyder (Eds.). Handbook of positive psychology assessment (pp. 327-341). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.