Appreciating the Positive Protects us from Negative Emotions: The Relationship between gratitude, Depression and Religiosity

Noticing and appreciating the positive in life naturally contrasts with a depressive worldview witch involves a negative view of self, the world and the future. In this cross-sectional study we investigated whether participants’ religious motivation play a role in the relationship between gratitude and depression. Romanian participants (N = 113) completed online a series of self-report measures. As expected, an inverse relationship was found between gratitude and depression. More importantly, participants’ religious motivation moderates the relationship between gratitude and depression, with highly religious individuals displaying less severe depressive symptoms. Finally, the implications of these findings and future research directions are highlighted.