No Evidence That Gratitude Enhances Neural Performance Monitoring or Conflict-Driven Control

It has recently been suggested that gratitude can benefit self-regulation by reducing impulsivity during economic decision making. We tested if comparable benefits of gratitude are observed for neural performance monitoring and conflict-driven self-control. In a pre-post design, 61 participants were...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-12, Vol.10 (12), p.e0143312-e0143312
Main Authors: Saunders, Blair, He, Frank F H, Inzlicht, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adjustment
Adolescent
Automatic control
Brain - physiology
Conflict (Psychology)
Decision making
Drive
Economic aspects
Electroencephalography
Emotions - physiology
Evoked Potentials - physiology
Female
Happiness
Humans
Impulsive behavior
Laboratories
Male
Memory, Episodic
Mismatch negativity
Monitoring
Neurophysiology
Neurosciences
Physiological aspects
Psychology
Psychopathology
Self control
Studies
Young Adult
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Summary:It has recently been suggested that gratitude can benefit self-regulation by reducing impulsivity during economic decision making. We tested if comparable benefits of gratitude are observed for neural performance monitoring and conflict-driven self-control. In a pre-post design, 61 participants were randomly assigned to either a gratitude or happiness condition, and then performed a pre-induction flanker task. Subsequently, participants recalled an autobiographical event where they had felt grateful or happy, followed by a post-induction flanker task. Despite closely following existing protocols, participants in the gratitude condition did not report elevated gratefulness compared to the happy group. In regard to self-control, we found no association between gratitude--operationalized by experimental condition or as a continuous predictor--and any control metric, including flanker interference, post-error adjustments, or neural monitoring (the error-related negativity, ERN). Thus, while gratitude might increase economic patience, such benefits may not generalize to conflict-driven control processes.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0143312