Wilfrid Laurier University Scholars Commons @ Laurier Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive) 2018 A Grateful Mind: The Impact of Felt Fluency on Subjective Well- Being Renee Hunt [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd Part of the Other Psychology Commons, and the Social Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Hunt, Renee, "A Grateful Mind: The Impact of Felt Fluency on Subjective Well-Being" (2018). Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive). 2041. https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/2041 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive) by an authorized administrator of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Running head: A GRATEFUL MIND 1 A Grateful Mind: The Impact of Felt Fluency on Subjective Well-Being by Renee E. Hunt Bachelor of Arts, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2010 Master of Arts - Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2012 DISSERTATION Submitted to the Department of Psychology/Faculty of Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology Wilfrid Laurier University © Renee E. Hunt 2018 Running head: A GRATEFUL MIND 2 Abstract The practice of gratitude has become increasingly prevalent in popular culture as a self- help intervention aimed at improving individuals’ happiness and overall well-being. Although a great deal of empirical work has promoted the benefits of practicing gratitude (see Davis et al., 2016 for a review), less work has been conducted examining the conditions under which the traditional gratitude interventions are less effective, or even entirely ineffective. One potential boundary condition that may be associated with the benefit individuals report after engaging in the practice of gratitude is fluency – an individual’s subjective experience of ease or difficulty. When tasks are experienced as relatively easy, people are more likely to indicate they possess the qualities inherent within the task (e.g., Schwarz et al., 1991). That is, if a gratitude exercise is experienced with relative ease, this ought to be reflected in their subsequent self-relevant judgments (e.g., greater reported gratitude and well-being). In Studies 1-3 we attempted to manipulate fluency (i.e., subjective experience of ease) in a common gratitude intervention in order to assess its role as a potential moderator between the practice of gratitude and well-being. Although the manipulation was unsuccessful, we found individual difference evidence that engaging in a gratitude task was associated with greater well-being when the task was experienced as subjectively easy; but was no different from a control when the task was experienced as subjectively difficult. Next, we tried to mitigate the negative impact of low fluency by providing an alternative explanation for its meaning – namely that it was not important diagnostically (Study 4) or that it indicated more meaningful responding (Study 5). Although Study 5 showed some dampening of the effect of fluency, it failed to reach significance. Finally, overall effects were examined in a series of meta-analyses. Overall, the results provided evidence that gratitude tasks were associated with greater well-being when they Running head: A GRATEFUL MIND 3 were experienced as easy, but were no better than a control when they were experienced as difficult. Further, as subjective difficulty increased, gratitude tasks became less effective (as evidenced by an overall negative slope) as a means of boosting well-being; control tasks however were unaffected by subjective difficulty (as evidenced by a flat slope). These studies represent some of the first steps toward understanding the role of individuals’ phenomenological experience in response to a gratitude intervention. Future directions and real-world implications are discussed. Keywords: gratitude, positive psychology, happiness interventions, subjective well-being, affect, fluency Running head: A GRATEFUL MIND 4 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my sincerest thanks, appreciation, and genuine gratitude to my doctoral supervisor, Anne Wilson. Through your tutelage, extreme patience, and unwavering support, I have been given the opportunity to grow as a scholar and an individual – and I believe I am leaving a better, more rounded person as a result. Thank you for guiding me and giving me the opportunity to experience and investigate avenues of research and life-after- research I would not otherwise have had the chance to explore. Thank you for pushing me and helping me learn to stand on my own. I am thankful to my committee members, Christian Jordan and Justin Cavallo, you have both helped me to ground this dissertation solidly in theory while not losing sight of the important practical and applied purpose of my research. Thank you for your incredible support and dedication throughout this process. To my external committee members, Lindie Liang and Michael Busseri, thank you for your encouragement, and astute feedback. You have given me the opportunity to examine my work from a different perspective and to more deeply engage with its true purpose. There are a number of people without whom my graduate career would have been vastly more difficult and less exciting: those who went through it with me. To my colleagues, who over the years have become incredible, and life-long friends, thank you for not only encouraging and supporting me as we went through this process together, but also for providing the stress relief so often needed. I consider myself incredibly blessed to have met and gotten to know each and every one of you. The circumstances of my life leading me to this point, could not have been more ideal, thanks to my amazing family. To my parents, you have been a source of never-ending support Running head: A GRATEFUL MIND 5 and love; always pushing me to succeed and sacrificing so much for me to be able to do just that. I will never be able to express how deeply grateful I am to both of you, nor how lucky I was to have been gifted you as role models. To my grandmother, who has been like a third parent, thank you for always being in my corner. And to my big brother, thank you for teaching me and protecting me in uncountable ways throughout my life. I would also like to thank my extended family: to the Leiths, thank you for your great assistance and dedication in helping me achieve this goal, I could not have done it without you. And finally, to my partner and best friend: my husband Scott Leith. I am at a loss for words to describe how much you have done for me – and meant to me – over the past eight years. You pushed me when I needed to be pushed and never let me back down from a challenge. I am continually inspired by your independence, drive, and incredible thirst for knowledge. Thank you for giving me the greatest gift of all: our curious, hilarious, and so easily loveable son, Jack. Just by existing he has taught me how to be grateful in an entirely new and fantastic way. The two of you have redefined for me true meaning in life. A Grateful Mind 6 Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... 4 A Grateful Mind: The Impact of Felt Fluency on Subjective Well-Being ................................... 10 Positive Psychology: Shifting Focus ..................................................................................... 11 Happiness as Research ........................................................................................................... 12 Positive Emotions Broaden and Build ................................................................................... 13 Positive Psychology: Interventions Aimed at Increasing Happiness .................................... 17 Positive Psychology in the Real World ................................................................................. 18 Can Happiness Be Altered? ................................................................................................... 19 Disposition and Emotion ....................................................................................................... 21 Gratitude ................................................................................................................................ 25 Gratitude as a Positive Psychology Intervention ................................................................... 26 Limitations to Gratitude as a Positive Psychological Intervention........................................ 29 The Impact of Ease (Fluency) ............................................................................................... 31 Goals of the Present Work ............................................................................................................ 36 Study 1 .......................................................................................................................................... 37 Method ...................................................................................................................................... 37 Participants ...........................................................................................................................