An Investigation into the effects of gratitude interventions for school-aged children

Abstract

This paper examines the utility of using gratitude interventions with school-aged children. A systematic review of the existing literature revealed that there is currently insufficient evidence to advocate for universally using ‘light touch’ gratitude interventions with school-aged children; further research is needed to assess whether there are optimum conditions for delivering these interventions. Initial research examining an intervention designed to educate children about the social-cognitive appraisals involved when receiving benefits from other people has had more promising results. More research is required to assess whether interventions of this kind could be beneficial for diverse populations. The empirical study investigated using a gratitude diary intervention with a sample of pupils in years 5 and 6 (n = 154) from three UK primary schools. Overall, participants’ change in gratitude was not significant but a significant increase was experienced by a sub-sample of participants (n = 46) who had lower pre-intervention gratitude scores. Other results indicated that any change in gratitude was not related to children’s pre-existing enjoyment of writing, their enjoyment of keeping a gratitude diary, how hard they found it to think of things to write in their diary or the amount they wrote. Content analysis of a sample of diaries (n = 27) indicated that there were no significant differences in what children wrote about in their diary whether they experienced a change in gratitude or not. Participants’ feedback on the intervention offers valuable insights into how children experienced keeping a gratitude diary. In line with this feedback, future research could adopt a less-prescriptive and more flexible intervention.

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ORCID for Catherine Brignell: orcid.org/0000-0001-7768-6272

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