Being grateful every day will pay off: a daily diary investigation on relationships between gratitude and well-being in Chinese young adults

Preceding research has demonstrated the positive relation between gratitude and well-being at the trait level, but less is known about the day-to-day association between them. This study investigated the within-person associations of gratitude with hedonic and eudaimonic well-being using a daily diary design. A sample of 363 young adults (M = 19.77, SD = 1.84) finished an online questionnaire once a day for 14 consecutive days. The results indicated that gratitude was positively related to hedonic and eudaimonic well-being on the same day, and gratitude positively predicted next-day hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, but not vice versa. We also found the reciprocal relation between the cognitive component of daily hedonic well-being (i.e., life satisfaction) and daily gratitude measured by the Gratitude Questionnaire. Moreover, these cross-lagged relations were not moderated by trait gratitude. These results provide supportive and convincing evidence for the positive effect of gratitude at the state level.