Helpful Today, But Not Tomorrow? Feeling Grateful as a Predictor of Daily Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

Abstract

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.Conceptually, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been viewed as a critical component of job performance (Rotundo & Sackett, 2002), reflecting employee behaviors that maintain, support, and enhance the psychological context, which surrounds task performance (Organ, 1997). Over the past 25 years, interest in OCB and related constructs, such as contextual performance and change-oriented, extra-role behaviors,

Is a happy leader a good leader? A meta-analytic investigation of leader trait affect and leadership

“…We encourage future leadership researchers to continue to explore the role of discrete emotions as they may have unique predictive value. For example, recently, Spence, Brown, Keeping, and Lian (2014) found that gratitude predicted helping behaviors at work above and beyond positive affect.…”

Are servant leaders appreciated? An investigation of how relational attributions influence employee feelings of gratitude and prosocial behaviors

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“…We measured receiving help at work using three items from the scale developed by Spence, Brown, Keeping and Lian (2013). CSRs were asked to indicate the extent to which they received help at work that day (1 = "never"; 5 = "always").…”