Gratitude as an Affective Trait
Rosenberg (1998) proposed that the common forms of affective
experience could be structured hierarchically according to specificity,
temporal stability, pervasiveness in consciousness, and effects
on other psychological systems. Rosenberg placed affective
traits, defined as “stable predispositions toward certain types of
emotional responding” that “set the threshold for the occurrence of
particular emotional states” (p. 249) at the top of the hierarchy. She
considered moods, which “wax and wane, fluctuating throughout
or across days” (p. 250), as subordinate to affective traits, and
emotions, which are “acute, intense, and typically brief psychophysiological
changes that result from a response to a meaningful
situation in one’s environment” (p. 250), as subordinate to both
affective traits and moods.
Gratitude, like other affects, conceivably could exist as an
affective trait, a mood, or an emotion. The present article is
concerned primarily with gratitude as an affective trait that we call
the grateful disposition or disposition toward gratitude. We define
the grateful disposition as a generalized tendency to recognize and
respond with grateful emotion to the roles of other people’s benevolence
in the positive experiences and outcomes that one
obtains.