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Record W4410017028 · doi:10.1098/rsos.250508

Revisiting the effects of helper intentions on gratitude and indebtedness: Replication and extensions Registered Report of Tsang (2006)

2025· article· en· W4410017028 on OpenAlexaff
Chi Wai Chan, Fung Yee Lau, WY Ip, Chak Fong Shannon Lui, Katy Y. Y. Tam, Gilad Feldman

Bibliographic record

VenueRoyal Society Open Science · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldPsychology
TopicCultural Differences and Values
Canadian institutionsUniversity of Toronto
Fundersnot available
KeywordsGratitudeComputer scienceAlgorithmArtificial intelligencePsychologySocial psychology

Abstract

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Gratitude and indebtedness are common emotions in response to a favour, yet research suggests that they are experienced differently depending on the situation. Tsang (Tsang JA. 2006 The effects of helper intention on gratitude and indebtedness. Motiv. Emot. 30 , 198–204. ( doi:10.1007/s11031-006-9031-z )), found that gratitude for a favour depended on perceived helper intention, whereas indebtedness did not. Perceived benevolent helper intentions were associated with higher gratitude from beneficiaries compared to selfish ones, yet had no associations with indebtedness. In a registered report with a United States Prolific student sample ( n = 759), we conducted a replication and extensions of studies 2 and 3 from Tsang, 2006. In the original studies, Tsang found support for the impact of the helper’s intention on gratitude (study 2: <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>η</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:mrow> </mml:mstyle> </mml:math> = 0.20 [0.08, 0.32]; study 3: <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>η</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:mrow> </mml:mstyle> </mml:math> = 0.14 [0.03, 0.26]), but not for indebtedness (study 2: <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>η</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:mrow> </mml:mstyle> </mml:math> = 0.01 [0.00, 0.08]; study 3: <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>η</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:mrow> </mml:mstyle> </mml:math> = 0.00 [0.00, 0.03]). In our replications, we found support for the impact of helper’s intention on gratitude (study 2: <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>η</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:mrow> </mml:mstyle> </mml:math> = 0.33 [0.28, 0.37]; study 3: <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>η</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:mrow> </mml:mstyle> </mml:math> = 0.16 [0.12, 0.20]), and—as expected—no support for an effect on indebtedness (study 2: <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>η</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:mrow> </mml:mstyle> </mml:math> = 0.00 [0.00, 0.01]; study 3: <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>η</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:mrow> </mml:mstyle> </mml:math> = 0.01 [0.00, 0.01]). We concluded a successful replication, that helping intent was more strongly associated with gratitude than with indebtedness. Extending the replication, we found evidence for the impact of helper intention on perceived expectations for reciprocity ( d = 1.51 [1.31, 1.71]), and reciprocity inclination ( d = 0.66 [0.48, 0.84]), and for opposite associations of perceived reciprocity expectations with gratitude ( r = −0.28 [−0.35, −0.22]) and indebtedness ( r = 0.17 [0.10, 0.24]). Materials, data and code are available on: https://osf.io/ghfy4/ . This registered report has been officially endorsed by the Peer Community in Registered Reports: https://doi.org/10.24072/pci.rr.100788 .

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How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame distilled prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.001
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.001
Version: codex-gemma-dda1882f352aValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: Observational
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.595
Threshold uncertainty score0.269

Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0010.001
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.000
Bibliometrics0.0000.000
Science and technology studies0.0000.001
Scholarly communication0.0000.000
Open science0.0000.000
Research integrity0.0000.000
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0000.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.063
GPT teacher head0.405
Teacher spread0.342 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designObservational
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

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Citations0
Published2025
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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