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Helpful Today, But Not Tomorrow? Feeling Grateful as a Predictor of Daily Organizational Citizenship Behaviors
Author(s) -
Spence Jeffrey R.,
Brown Douglas J.,
Keeping Lisa M.,
Lian Huiwen
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
personnel psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.076
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1744-6570
pISSN - 0031-5826
DOI - 10.1111/peps.12051
Subject(s) - gratitude , psychology , organizational citizenship behavior , social psychology , feeling , construct (python library) , affect (linguistics) , experience sampling method , organizational commitment , communication , computer science , programming language
This research extends the existing theoretical understanding of what predicts organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Using experience sampling techniques, we examine the within‐person relation between OCB and a novel, theoretically relevant predictor: state gratitude. Using 4 independent samples with a total of 210 working adults and 173 undergraduate students, we developed a reliable and valid measure of state gratitude. Drawing upon the moral affect model of gratitude and affective events theory, we conducted 2 experience sampling studies with data collected from 67 (Study 2) and 104 (Study 3) working adults to test the effects of state gratitude on OCB, beyond the effects of several relevant constructs (i.e., state positive affect, dispositional gratitude, and social exchange). Our results advance OCB research and explanations of OCB by modeling OCB as a dynamic, time‐variant construct and by demonstrating that feelings of gratitude, a discrete positive emotion, can be an effective predictor of OCB.