Date of Award
2014
Rights
Access is available to all users
Date Available to Non-EWU Users
August 2019
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS) in Psychology: Clinical
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Dr. Philip Watkins
Second Advisor
Dr. Amani El-Alayli
Third Advisor
Prof. Doris Munson
Abstract
Individuals with enhanced gratitude have higher well-being, a greater capacity to trust, and more appreciation of others. Studies have found that people who show secure attachment also tend to be high in trait gratitude, however, a direct causal relationship has yet to be established. It was hypothesized that secure attachment priming would enhance state gratitude more than other attachment primes. Furthermore, it was predicted that securely attached individuals would have more positive affectivity than insecurely attached individuals, in general. To assess these questions, an experimental design was used to study the relationship between gratitude and attachment. State gratitude was measured by using an instrument to assess gratitude after the priming of attachment occurred. Specifically, participants were primed with one of the following: secure, insecure, or neutral memories through a writing exercise, with the experimental conditions designed to induce a secure or insecure attachment style. Results indicated that secure attachment prime resulted in significantly greater state gratitude than the insecure attachment prime. These findings suggest compelling possibilities for enhanced interpersonal relationship satisfaction.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Konkler, Jessica, "Effect of Priming Attachment Styles on Gratitude in Close Relationships" (2014). EWU Masters Thesis Collection. 265.
https://dc.ewu.edu/theses/265
