Gratitude Reduces the Adverse Impact of Salient Male Privilege on Men's Well-Being

摘要

Men's reflection on gender-based privileges may foster more egalitarian attitudes, but can also undermine their personal and collective well-being. We tested whether gratitude-a positive emotional response to benefits resulting from someone else's intervention-mitigated these adverse effects by exposing 245 men enrolled in a Canadian university to one of six combinations of benefit and male privilege salience reflection tasks. Salient male privilege led to lower gender group identification and increased impostor feelings, but gratitude buffered these effects as predicted. Gratitude therefore appears to neutralize the threat of privilege salience among men so that the prosocial consequences of such reflection may be easier to realize.