Altruism, Gratitude and Hope among Young Adults in India

Description

Page: 113-118

Ronak Parhi and Nisha James (Department of Psychology, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru, Karnataka)

Studies in positive psychology that have looked at the relationship between altruism and hope often show that they do not have a relationship. The various facets of gratitude have also been ignored in previous studies when finding its relationship with other positive emotions. This paper conducted a correlational study on 134 young Indian adults to evaluate their levels of altruism, gratitude and hope. The results confirmed that altruism and hope have no significant positive relationship, while gratitude has a positive relationship with altruism and hope. A Multi-Component Gratitude tool was used to ensure that the different components of gratitude were recorded in this study for analysis, such as ‘feelings of gratitude’, ‘attitudes to appropriateness’, ‘behavioural shortcomings’, ‘rituals/ noticing benefits’, ‘expressions (of gratitude)’ and attitude of gratitude. Thus the study’s results aim to help individuals deepen their experience of a positive emotion and build more of them through interventions.