Feelings of gratitude to Allah and people and their associations with affect in daily life.

Abstract

Gratitude has been studied in the context of human social relationships primarily, but relatively less is known about gratitude in relation to a deity. We extended this research by studying gratitude among Muslim American adolescents, an understudied population, by comparing feelings of gratitude to Allah with feelings of gratitude to people in their associations with affect in daily life. Muslim adolescents (N = 202) participated in an Ecological Momentary Assessment study by completing up to three momentary reports each day during three separate weeks. Within-person results showed that both forms of gratitude were positively associated with concurrent happiness and calmness and were negatively associated with concurrent anxiety and sadness, though gratitude to people was a stronger predictor of happiness than gratitude to Allah. Most of the associations between gratitude to people and affect were stronger when youth felt less grateful to Allah, thus supporting a compensation model in which one form of gratitude offsets lower levels in the other. Lagged associations indicated that gratitude to people more consistently predicted greater subsequent feelings of happiness and calmness, whereas happiness and calmness consistently predicted greater subsequent feelings of gratitude to Allah. Results have implications for how distinct forms of gratitude may differentially influence affect.