The effect of repeating “thank you” at time intervals: Focus on how emotions are received

This study aimed to investigate the perception of gratitude expression, focusing particularly on the time interval and repetitiveness of saying “thank you.” Undergraduate students (N＝132) participated in a web-based scenario experiment. The scenario described advising a friend on college coursework or relationship issues. The time interval and repetitiveness of “thank you” were manipulated by varying the scenario depiction on the present and the following days, respectively. Eight distinct scenarios were used: advice content (2)×saying “thank you” on the day (2)×saying “thank you” on the following day (2). Participants were asked to report their perceptions of their friend’s gratitude feeling for each scenario on the present and the next day, respectively. Prior research demonstrates that gratitude feeling includes both joyful and apologetic feelings. Therefore, this study investigated each feeling. The results indicated the effects of “thank you” repetition on joyful gratitude and the effects of time intervals on apologetic gratitude. In the discussion, interpretations of these results and future study recommendations are presented.