The Effects Of Downward Social Comparison And Counterfactual Thinking On State Gratitude In Different Contexts

Gratitude emotion is a traditional virtue of the Chinese nation,but also an important moral emotion.Not only the study of state gratitude has great significance for the inheritance of the excellent traditional Chinese culture,but also plays an important role in cultivating students ’gratitude emotion and improving students’ psychological life.Most of the previous studies focused on the gratitude generated when receiving favors from others,but ignored the study of gratitude in the broad state.In a broad sense,state gratitude refers to an immediate gratitude emotion that people produce to a person or a certain situation in a specific situation because of something meaningful or valuable.Downward social comparison and counterfactual thinking help individuals to view their situations from a more positive perspective and be aware of positive aspects that may be overlooked in their lives,which may have a positive impact on state gratitude.On the basis of the foreign literature and the Chinese cultural background,this paper explores the influence of downward social comparison and downward counterfactual thinking on state gratitude in different situations.The first is the mixed experimental design of 2(context type: favor,non-favor)×3(comparative thinking: control group,downward social comparison,downward counterfactual thinking),where the context type is the subject variable,the comparative thinking is the inter-subject variable,and the dependent variable is the score of the participants at the state gratitude level under different experimental conditions.The results found that the main effect of context type was significant,and the main effect of comparative thinking and the intersection of context type and comparative thinking were not significant,which indicated that in the favor and non-favor situation,the downward social comparison and counterfactual thinking could not significantly affect people’s state gratitude level.In order to further study the influence of downside social comparison and downside counterfactual thinking on state gratitude,we explore whether these two comparative thinking can have an impact on people’s state gratitude in a broader context.Research 2 is a 2(situation type: daily life,major life)×2(situation nature: positive,negative)×3(comparative thinking: control group,downward social comparison,downward counterfactual thinking)mixed experiment,meter,the situation type and situation nature for the subject variables,comparative thinking for subjects,the variables for the subjects in different experimental conditions state level of gratitude.Results found that the main effect of situation type,the main effect of context,the main effect of comparative thinking,situation type and comparative thinking,interaction,significant nature and situation type and comparative thinking interaction is not significant,the three triple,interaction is not significant,further simple effect analysis found that in the daily life situation,the control group and comparison,the state of gratitude level difference is significant,in the control group and significant life situation,thinking group state gratitude level edge is significant.In conclusion,the conclusion is that: 1.In the case of favor and non-favor,neither social comparison and counterfactual thinking cannot significantly improve the level of gratitude.2.In daily life and major life situations,downward counterfactual thinking can significantly improve the level of gratitude.In the daily life situations,the descending social comparison can significantly improve the level of state gratitude,but in the major life situations.3.In daily life situations and major life situations,the influence of downward social comparison and downward counterfactual thinking on state gratitude is independent of the positive or negative nature of the situation itself.