Abstract
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 180391 |
| Pages | 1-9 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Royal Society Open Science |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 23 May 2018 |
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Bibliographical note
Copyright the Author(s) 2018. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.Cite this
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Universals and cultural diversity in the expression of gratitude. / Floyd, Simeon; Rossi, Giovanni; Baranova, Julija; Blythe, Joseph; Dingemanse, Mark; Kendrick, Kobin H.; Zinken, Jörg; Enfield, N. J.
In: Royal Society Open Science, Vol. 5, No. 5, 180391, 23.05.2018, p. 1-9.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - Universals and cultural diversity in the expression of gratitude
AU - Floyd,Simeon
AU - Rossi,Giovanni
AU - Baranova,Julija
AU - Blythe,Joseph
AU - Dingemanse,Mark
AU - Kendrick,Kobin H.
AU - Zinken,Jörg
AU - Enfield,N. J.
N1 - Copyright the Author(s) 2018. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.
PY - 2018/5/23
Y1 - 2018/5/23
N2 - Gratitude is argued to have evolved to motivate and maintain social reciprocity among people, and to be linked to a wide range of positive effects—social, psychological and even physical. But is socially reciprocal behaviour dependent on the expression of gratitude, for example by saying ‘thank you’ as in English? Current research has not included cross-cultural elements, and has tended to conflate gratitude as an emotion with gratitude as a linguistic practice, as might appear to be the case in English. Here, we ask to what extent people express gratitude in different societies by focusing on episodes of everyday life where someone seeks and obtains a good, service or support from another, comparing these episodes across eight languages from five continents. We find that expressions of gratitude in these episodes are remarkably rare, suggesting that social reciprocity in everyday life relies on tacit understandings of rights and duties surrounding mutual assistance and collaboration. At the same time, we also find minor cross-cultural variation, with slightly higher rates in Western European languages English and Italian, showing that universal tendencies of social reciprocity should not be equated with more culturally variable practices of expressing gratitude. Our study complements previous experimental and culture-specific research on gratitude with a systematic comparison of audiovisual corpora of naturally occurring social interaction from different cultures from around the world.
AB - Gratitude is argued to have evolved to motivate and maintain social reciprocity among people, and to be linked to a wide range of positive effects—social, psychological and even physical. But is socially reciprocal behaviour dependent on the expression of gratitude, for example by saying ‘thank you’ as in English? Current research has not included cross-cultural elements, and has tended to conflate gratitude as an emotion with gratitude as a linguistic practice, as might appear to be the case in English. Here, we ask to what extent people express gratitude in different societies by focusing on episodes of everyday life where someone seeks and obtains a good, service or support from another, comparing these episodes across eight languages from five continents. We find that expressions of gratitude in these episodes are remarkably rare, suggesting that social reciprocity in everyday life relies on tacit understandings of rights and duties surrounding mutual assistance and collaboration. At the same time, we also find minor cross-cultural variation, with slightly higher rates in Western European languages English and Italian, showing that universal tendencies of social reciprocity should not be equated with more culturally variable practices of expressing gratitude. Our study complements previous experimental and culture-specific research on gratitude with a systematic comparison of audiovisual corpora of naturally occurring social interaction from different cultures from around the world.
KW - gratitude
KW - reciprocity
KW - assistance
KW - collaboration
KW - social interaction
KW - cross-cultural
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85047903512&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1098/rsos.180391
DO - 10.1098/rsos.180391
M3 - Article
VL - 5
SP - 1
EP - 9
JO - Royal Society Open Science
T2 - Royal Society Open Science
JF - Royal Society Open Science
SN - 2054-5703
IS - 5
M1 - 180391
ER -