Developmental Psychology - Article Example

Developmental Psychology Developmental Psychology Froh, J. (2008). Counting blessings in early adolescents: An experimental study of gratitude and subjective well-being. Journal of School Psychology, 213-233.IntroductionThe manifestation of gratitude in youth is often unclear. Different youth have different levels of showing gratitude. Psychologists have argued that development of gratitude within youth is often seen as a sign of appreciation, being content as well as optimistic. Gratitude is conceptualized as a virtue or at times as an emotional state.

The development of gratitude within youth shows development of character and consequently there is a need to study it to better understand its different forms and levels. This research paper examines the development of gratitude within adolescents. MethodsParticipants221 early adolescents were used in this experiment, eleven classes were assigned in a random manner and each of them were assigned to either gratitude, control condition or hassles. This was imperative as it ensured that there was complete reliability of the experiment because of the simple random sampling.

They were 48.9% males, 40.7% females and 9.5% refusing to report their sex. The majority of the people were Caucasian being 68.9%.ProcedureThe adolescents were asked questions regarding whether they were grateful depending on several situations. Questionnaires and interviews were used. ResultsThe results indicated that counting blessings was largely associated with enhanced self reported gratitude, life satisfaction, optimism as well as decreased negative effect. In fact feeling grateful in response to the aid mediated a relationship that existed between the experimental condition as well as general gratitude in the 3-week follow up.

Discussion In conclusion, the most significant finding from the experiment was the robust relationship that existed between gratitude as well as satisfaction with school experience at both post test as well as the three week follow- up. The counting of blessing seemed to be what can be described as an effective intervention for well being, especially when it came to early adolescents. References