Consumer gratitude is by and large an under-researched topic in the field of marketing and consumer behavior. There are three seminal articles that have recently dealt with the gratitude construct. First, Morales (2005) suggested that gratitude influenced a consumer's willingness to pay for products and services. Second, Soscia (2007) found that consumer gratitude was positively linked to word of mouth (WOM) and repurchase intention. In a more heavily cited article, Palmatier, Jarvis, Bechkoff, and Kardes (2009) found that gratitude mediated the relationship between relationship marketing investments (RMI) and several desirable outcomes for the firm (i.e., purchase intention, share of wallet, sales revenue and sales growth). In this paper, we extended the findings of Palmatier et al. (2009) in two ways. First, we replicated Palmatier's finding in a services setting using increased service level as a relationship marketing investment. We tested the mediating impact of gratitude on the relationship between service level and customer satisfaction, reciprocal behaviors and the consumer's behavioral intentions of repurchase and WOM. Second, we addressed factors that may impact the link between relationship marketing investment (service level) and gratitude. Specifically, does an RMI generate the same level of gratitude in all consumers, or are some consumers more/less receptive to the provision of these benefits? We proposed that gratitude is not solely dependent on the benefit received, but a consequence of both the benefit (service level) received and the customer's psychological makeup. We hypothesized that a subject's level of reciprocation wariness, or an individuals' "general fear of exploitation in interpersonal relationships" (Cotterrell et al. 1992; Eisenberger et al. 1987) would affect their reaction to receiving an RMI. People who are high in reciprocation wariness are worried about being exploited in a relationship; therefore we hypothesized that they would not respond to high levels of RMI with the same levels of gratitude as low reciprocation wary individuals. As a result, the same level of RMI will result in better outcomes for the firm if the customers are less reciprocation wary.
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