The effect of state gratitude on interpersonal trust under cognitive reappraisal among Chinese college students

Objectives: This article starts with increasing emotions through cognitive reappraisal and explores the impact of state gratitude emotions on interpersonal trust among college students under cognitive reappraisal.

Method: In study 1, we used a questionnaire survey and experimental design to collect data, which we processed/analyzed using SPSS 23.0. We employed, the Rotter Interpersonal Trust Scale (ITS), as adapted by Xu Huiyan, consisting of 25 items, to measure the interpersonal trust levels among college students and to explore the potentially significant differences in interpersonal trust levels among the students based on their demographic variables, including gender. We collected 347 survey questionnaires, with 143 from males and 204 from females, with a mean age of 20.93 (SD = 2.703). In study 2, we utilized a univariate inter-subject experimental design, with the independent variable being the state gratitude emotion (awakened vs. not awakened) under cognitive reappraisal, and the dependent variable was the level of interpersonal trust. Thirty participants participated in the pre-experiment, followed by 119 participants in the formal experiment to assess the impact of state gratitude emotion on interpersonal trust among college students, using motivation reappraisal strategy (t = - 4.028, p < 0.01).

Results: This study found that (1) the overall interpersonal trust of college students was moderate to low (M = 38.01, SD = 9.13); (2) no significant differences in interpersonal trust levels were found among college students based on gender, grade, and whether they had children; however, the significant differences in interpersonal trust levels were observed among college students based on their the area of residence (F = 3.675, p < 0.05), school type (F = 3.04, p < 0.05), and family type (t = - 3.034, p < 0.01); (3) cognitive reappraisal has been shown to enhance individuals' gratitude emotions in situations, thereby, raising their interpersonal trust level.

Conclusions: We conclude that cognitive reappraisal enhances individuals' positive emotions and levels of interpersonal trust in social interactions, offering a reference for promoting positive emotions and interpersonal trust levels among college students.