Gratitude, in addition to being studied as an emotion, has been conceptualized as a disposition that allows reflects the extent to which appreciate what they have in life knowing that it will not last forever. Moreover, such a perspective has been found to promote quality of life.
We aimed to examine if dispositional gratitude retained its positive qualities in a population with a life-threatening illness. We hypothesized that the level of dispositional gratitude among women with breast cancer would be positively correlated with their well-being and use of adaptive coping.
In the current study, 119 women with breast cancer completed questionnaires measuring gratitude, well-being, coping styles, depression, and anxiety. We found that levels of dispositional gratitude were positively correlated with well-being (p < .01) and were negatively with depression (p < .05) and anxiety (p < .01). Gratitude was also positively correlated with the implementation of task-oriented coping techniques (p < .05).
The results of the study suggest that dispositional gratitude is positively related to various aspects of positive functioning. We believe there is a need to design ways of increasing dispositional gratitude because it has the potential to enhance the quality of life in women who have breast cancer.