Gratitude, proactivity and job performance

: is there a relationship?

Abstract

We have witnessed a rise in positive psychology, especially in the workplace environment, with increasing studies analysing the benefits of positive emotions in organisational settings. Consistently, job proactivity and job performance are crucial for a company’s and employee’s success and have been linked to gratitude. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to analyse the efficacy of a gratitude intervention on job performance, as a function of job proactivity. One hundred and sixty-five participants were randomly assigned to three journal-type interventions (control condition vs. gratitude condition vs. positive control condition) and were then asked to complete the scales for measuring gratitude at work, job proactivity and job performance. The results showed that job proactivity is not a moderator for the relationship between gratitude at work and job performance. However, exploratory analyses suggest that the relationship between gratitude for meaningful work and task performance is statistically significant for contexts where gratitude and other positive emotions are encouraged. This study showed the usefulness of brief inexpensive interventions that can be implemented by organisations through nudges to promote positive emotions in a work environment, and consequently, improve task performance.

Date of Award	15 Dec 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Cláudia Simão (Supervisor)