A preliminary study of the origins of early adolescents' gratitude differences

Extant research has focused on the consequences of individual differences in gratitude, especially among adults. We focused on addressing the antecedents of gratitude differences among early adolescents, which may be a critical time in gratitude development (Froh, Fan et al., 2011). Specifically, we examined the relations among personality variables (i.e., extraversion and neuroticism), social support (i.e., parents, teachers, peers), stressful life events, and gratitude in a sample of 647 middle school students from four middle schools in a Southeastern US state. Controlling for gender, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity, hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed statistically significant relations for the personality variables of extraversion and neuroticism. Furthermore, after controlling for demographic and personality variables, students' perceptions of social support contributed significance incremental variance to early adolescents' gratitude scores, with both parent and teacher support accounting for unique variance. Finally, stressful life events added significant variance after controlling for the demographic, personality and social support variables. Contrary to expectations, neither students' levels of social support nor neuroticism scores moderated the association between stressful events and gratitude. The results suggest implications for the development of more sophisticated theories of the antecedents of gratitude as well as the design of more comprehensive interventions.