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WHAT GOOD IS GRATITUDE IN YOUTH AND SCHOOLS? A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META‐ANALYSIS OF CORRELATES AND INTERVENTION OUTCOMES
Author(s) -
Renshaw Tyler L.,
Olinger Steeves Rachel M.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
psychology in the schools
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1520-6807
pISSN - 0033-3085
DOI - 10.1002/pits.21903
Subject(s) - gratitude , psychology , psychological intervention , intervention (counseling) , meta analysis , clinical psychology , discriminant validity , positive psychology , empirical research , developmental psychology , social psychology , psychometrics , internal consistency , medicine , philosophy , epistemology , psychiatry
The development of gratitude in youth has received increasing attention during the past several years, and gratitude‐based interventions have often been recommended for use in schools. Yet, the empirical status of the correlates of gratitude and the effects of gratitude‐based interventions on youths’ outcomes remains unclear. The present study addressed this ambiguity by systematically reviewing and meta‐analyzing original empirical journal articles investigating gratitude in youth through September 2014 ( N = 20). Findings from the meta‐analysis of correlates indicate small‐to‐moderate convergent and discriminant evidence for gratitude as a subjective well‐being indicator in youth, yet other results indicate that gratitude measures have relatively poor test–retest reliability and/or predictive validity and that they have questionable concurrent validity with other gratitude measures. Moreover, findings from the meta‐analysis of intervention outcomes indicate that gratitude‐based interventions are, as a whole, generally ineffective and that much more intervention research is warranted. Implications of these findings for theory, future research, and the practice of school psychology are discussed.