Feelings of gratitude motivate intimates to maintain valuable relationships. However, it is unknown whether expressions of gratitude similarly increase recipients’ relationship commitment. Two experiments tested the idea that expressions of gratitude simultaneously increase and decrease recipients’ commitment via different interpersonal evaluations, and reciprocity of gratitude determines the implications of such expressions. In Study 1, couples exchanged letters that did or did not express gratitude. Study 2 was a high-powered, preregistered experiment that led participants to believe they were or were not grateful for their partners, and their partners were or were not grateful for them. Both studies subsequently assessed automatic partner evaluations, deliberative partner and self-evaluations, and relationship commitment. Results demonstrated that intimates automatically evaluated partners who expressed gratitude more favorably and thus became more committed; however, if intimates did not reciprocate such gratitude, their deliberate self-evaluations became more favorable than their partner evaluations, and thus they became less committed.

感激之情促使亲戚维持宝贵的关系。但是，尚不清楚表达感激之情是否会增加接受者的关系承诺。两项实验测试了这样一种想法，即感恩表达通过不同的人际评价同时增加和减少了接受者的承诺，而感恩的互惠性决定了这种表达的含义。在研究1中，夫妻交换了表示感谢或不表示感谢的信件。研究2是一项功能强大的预先注册的实验，使参与者相信自己对伴侣的感恩之情，或者对伴侣不感恩之情。两项研究随后都评估了自动伙伴评估，协商性伙伴和自我评估以及关系承诺。结果表明，亲密者自动评估对伙伴表示感谢的伙伴，从而更感激他们，从而变得更加坚定。但是，如果亲戚们不表达这种感激之情，那么他们故意进行的自我评价就会比伴侣的评价更有利，因此他们的承诺就会减少。