Development and preliminary validation of the Existential Gratitude Scale (EGS)

Abstract

This paper reports the development and preliminary validation of a new Existential Gratitude Scale (EGS), designed to measure the tendency to give thanks in difficult times. This study is part of the research agenda of second-wave positive psychology (PP2.0) which emphasizes the positive psychology of suffering. After a pilot study based on a convenient sample, we did a validity study based on 186 participants from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and regular participants. They completed the revised 13-item EGS, the Short Gratitude, Resentment, and Appreciation Test (SGRAT), the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWB) and the Trauma Screening Questionnaire (TSQ). Results supported the factorial validity and our hypothesis that the existential gratitude scale was associated with spiritual well-being while the dispositional gratitude scale is not; this association was shown to be dependent on the presence of symptoms of PTSD. These findings support our proposition that existential gratitude is distinct from the more general dispositional gratitude.