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Frontiers in Developmental Psychology ·

Volume 4 - 2026 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fdpys.2026.1841850

Gratitude in childhood: ethnotheories from the Turkana of Kenya and Amhara of Ethiopia

  • Pamela Akinyi Wadende1*corresponding author
  • Missaye Mulatie Mengstie2
  1. 1Department of Educational Psychology, Kisii University, Kisii, Kenya
  2. 2Department of Psychology, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia
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Abstract

Gratitude, one virtue that reflects a person's high moral standards, is a culturally sensitive construct expressed differently across cultural contexts. Definitions and perceptions of gratitude among children may differ from one community to another and from one region of the world to another. This study used a phenomenological design, coupled with the Indigenous standpoint theoretical framework and related participatory methodologies, to understand the virtue of gratitude among children. Conducting a qualitative survey, the authors utilized focus group discussions and key informant interviews to investigate how adolescents and adults from the pastoralist Turkana of northern Kenya and the Amhara of central Ethiopia defined and perceived gratitude in children aged 4–8 years. The authors analyzed the data thematically. The findings indicate that gratitude is defined variously as an innate capacity, an action, an expression of other virtues, and a feeling used to commune with both humans and the spirit world. Thus, gratitude reflects appreciation, thankfulness, and a positive response to acts of generosity or opportunities provided. Participants noted that gratitude manifested in children through their emotional dispositions, social interactions and relationships with others; their moral values; their actions and behaviors; and other positive character virtues. The most frequent recurring theme was defining gratitude as a relational skill used with both people and the spiritual world. These findings have implications for programs that support children developing positive virtues: they should be rooted in local cultural traditions and stress values prioritized by local communities.

Keywords

Introduction

Gratitude is one of the virtues that reflect a person's high moral standards (McCullough et al., 2001). Ancient great philosophers and thinkers noted the importance of gratitude for human flourishing. Cicero, living between 106 and 43 bce, reflected that gratitude is not only the greatest of all virtues but also a foundation on which other virtues are built, and Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha, in the 6th and 5th centuries bce, had already said that any noble person is thankful and mindful of the favors they receive from others (O'Brien, 2019). Berkowitz and Grych (1998) note that the best developmental stage for learning these high moral standards is during childhood.

Children represent a community's future, thus the preoccupation with ensuring that they acquire positive virtues to shape their lives according to the community's expectations as ensconced in its cultural traditions. Communities hope that their members retain the essence of these cultural values and traditions despite constantly changing contextual dynamics and conditions, such as climate change and conflict, that require adaptation for successful life. Supporting children in developing positive virtues or essential character traits that signify moral excellence, such as gratitude (Emmons and Crumpler, 2000; Tudge et al., 2015; Wood et al., 2010), is one way a community transmits its cultural values and traditions from one generation to another. Within the developmental framework adopted in this study, gratitude is partly understood as a cognitively mediated socio-emotional competence (Halberstadt et al., 2016; Hussong et al., 2019a), resulting in behaviors that exhibit an awareness of good, freely given by a benefactor, and, like other human competencies, is learned gradually. The experiences children are exposed to during their early years play an important role in whether they learn positive virtues, such as gratitude, as defined and manifested in their context (Tudge et al., 2015).

Definitions of gratitude

Scholars have defined gratitude differently; for instance, Emmons and Crumpler (2000) noted that gratitude includes, but is more than, an emotion, a virtue, a moral sentiment, a motive, a coping response, a skill, and an attitude. Wood et al. (2010) understood that gratitude not only arises after help from others but is also a life orientation that manifests in habitually focusing on and appreciating the positive aspects of life. Watkins et al. (2003) considered gratitude to be an appreciation for others, simple pleasures, and a sense of abundance, while McCullough et al. (2002) understood it as both a positive emotion expressed in thankfulness for receiving a kindness or even a tangible gift from another person and a dispositional trait characterized by an individual practicing thankfulness as part of their daily life. Sansone and Sansone (2010) understood gratitude as appreciating something meaningful to oneself. Recently, gratitude has been increasingly understood as a culturally sensitive construct that, although it is as universal as emotions are, is expressed differently according to cultural settings (Mehta et al., 2022; Bansal et al., 2022; Garg et al., 2021). Children, by virtue of their developmental stage, may experience gratitude in the moment, showing appreciation to a benefactor (Hussong et al., 2019a; Froh et al., 2009; Warneken and Tomasello, 2013). In a study on raising grateful children, Hussong et al. (2019a) note that children cumulatively develop gratitude when their parents affirm their moment-to-moment gratitude-related behaviors. Gratitude itself encompasses other virtues, such as the self-discipline to recognize when kindness is shown, the patience to stop and deliberately appreciate it, the humility to acknowledge that it is helpful, and even the kindness to return the kind act in some way. Gratitude, then, is a moral virtue that requires the recipient to reciprocate to the benefactor, a process that can differ from one culture to another (Tudge et al., 2015).

Most studies on how individuals manifest gratitude are based on Western, educated, industrial, rich, democratic (WEIRD; Henrich et al., 2010) populations. When norms are based on these limited samples, generalizations from research on WEIRD populations (Morgan et al., 2022; Mercon-Vargas et al., 2018) can easily cause errors of omission and risk advancing ethnocentrism and its negative implications. How gratitude manifests in individuals is often observed in outcomes (Bartlett and DeSteno, 2006; Tsang, 2006). In children, gratitude has been shown to have a variety of psychological correlates, including optimism (Dickerhoof, 2007); satisfaction with life (Froh et al., 2008; Wood et al., 2008); curiosity, among other components (Rusk et al., 2015); and, in preschool children, increased prosocial behavior (Shoshani et al., 2020) all of which result in beneficial or wellbeing outcomes. Little evidence has been generated from Global South communities on gratitude's definition and observable manifestation in children. Indeed, most studies producing this evidence were conducted in WEIRD contexts, with few sub-Saharan African child populations. The available studies on gratitude that use populations from the Global South often focus on adolescents and adults (Janik et al., 2025; Guse et al., 2019; Ludick and Koen, 2021; Mason, 2019; Osborn et al., 2020). Understanding gratitude, its definition, and how it manifests in children in Global South contexts requires a theoretical framework and related research methods to guide how information is gathered and interpreted.

Reflections on the efficacy of gratitude for children in a world rife with adversity

Children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including Kenya, face substantial adversity, including the ravages of climate change and crushing poverty. According to a study conducted by Maweu (2022) for the multinational organization Save the Children, poverty impacts 16 million (67%) children in Kenya. In Ethiopia, conflict, climate change, and their related effects, including disruptions in education, health, and other social services (Mulatu, 2024), negatively impact children. Studies have concluded that gratitude is a protective factor against adversity. Gratitude supports both meaning-focused coping and the positive reframing of adverse situations (Kurian and Thomas, 2023), improves distress tolerance (Kaya and Kaya, 2024), and is a modifiable factor that can reduce anxiety symptoms and support better sleep and glycemic control, among other benefits (Koerner and Rechenberg, 2025). Additionally, gratitude is a composite virtue that includes aspects of self-discipline, kindness, humility, social awareness, and patience, among other traits (Zuniga et al., 2024; Cicero, 1851; Bastian et al., 2012). Because the foundations for developing positive virtues, including gratitude, are laid in childhood (Berkowitz and Grych, 1998), parents and other caregivers are key in supporting children's virtue development. All humans are born with varying degrees of biological—and thus the requisite foundational—capacities to learn (Stern, 2017) to successfully engage with their surroundings and the expectations therein (Cosmides and Tooby, 2013; Padmanabha, 2020; Stern, 2017). Learning to be grateful is just one use of this learning capacity that supports children as they engage adversity in their context.

The disruptive effects of megatrends, including negative impacts of digitalization, climate change, shifting demographics, and increased urbanization, are already palpable (Artuso and Guijt, 2020; Osakwe and Solleder, 2024). Currently, increasingly inadequate planned urbanization and, especially, conflict-instigated migration; widespread use of digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence; and the ravages of climate change are intensifying dehumanizing poverty, eroding humans' capacity to be creative, and giving rise to natural resource scarcity, such as water (Andrighetto et al., 2014; Buttrick and Oishi, 2017; Sainz et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2025). Practitioners, policymakers, and other professionals who work with children may need to reflect more than ever on the importance of gratitude as a protective virtue for children in these populations immersed in disruptions caused by megatrends.

Cross-cultural approach to studying gratitude among children

A cross-cultural approach to studying the construct of gratitude in children facilitates a more nuanced understanding by allowing ethnotheories from participating communities to be included in the study: the Turkana of Kenya and the Amhara of Ethiopia. This approach allows a deeper investigation into how cultural traditions impact the definitions of gratitude and how the consequent social behaviors support gratitude in children. Following the growth of positive psychology and an increased emphasis on human flourishing, recent studies, may using adult populations, have focused on the importance of gratitude for positive interpersonal relationships, wellbeing, and health (Obeldobel and Kerns, 2021; Farashaiyan and Hua, 2012). More studies on children will expand the character development scholarship among this target population. Recently, a few such studies focused on children as a population. For example, Halberstadt et al. (2016) sought to understand what form gratitude took in children aged 6–10 years in the southeastern United States. Additionally, a few research projects have pursued cross-cultural differences in understanding and expressing gratitude, such as Merçon-Vargas and Tudge's (2021) study exploring the ethnic variations in expressions of gratitude among European American, Brazilian, Hispanic, and African American children and adolescents aged 7–14 years living in the United States and Mendonça et al.'s (2018) study on child expression of gratitude among participant samples in Brazil, China, Guatemala, Russia, South Korea, Türkiye, and the United States.

Indeed, most studies on the conceptualization, development, and function of gratitude have been conducted in WEIRD (Henrich et al., 2010) societies, particularly the United States (Morgan et al., 2022; Merçon-Vargas and Tudge, 2021). Some notable studies focusing on gratitude in Africa have been conducted in South Africa and Kenya. Ludick and Koen's (2021) study explored gratitude experiences with 12 parent–child dyads in South Africa. Guse et al. (2019) studied subjective wellbeing in South African adolescents, and Mason (2019) measured associations between gratitude, wellbeing, and psychological distress in South African university students. In Kenya, Osborn et al. (2020) tried a ‘Shamiri' digital intervention with Kenyan adolescents exhibiting clinical symptoms of depression and anxiety; the team isolated gratitude and made it a key component of the developed intervention. These studies are limited because they focus on adolescence onward, leaving out childhood, the foundational developmental stage during which experiences play a major role in shaping later life outcomes (Devercelli and Neuman, 2026; Britto et al., 2017).

The current study

The current study took a phenomenological research design coupled with Indigenous standpoint theory (IST) tenets, which foreground Indigenous communities' ways of being, knowing, and values (Foley, 2003; Cox et al., 2021) as important for understanding information collected from the same communities using Indigenous participatory methodologies. IST helped us understand participants' perspectives and understanding of gratitude and its observable behavior among children from the Turkana community of northern Kenya and the Amhara of central Ethiopia through the lens of the two communities' ways of being, knowing, and values. This cross-cultural study surveyed adolescents' and adults' definitions of gratitude and what they believed its behavioral manifestations were in children aged 4–8 years among the Turkana and Amhara communities. It was an attempt to contribute cross-cultural perspectives from non-WEIRD populations on the virtue of gratitude, its definition, and manifestations in children aged 4–8 years. The study focused on providing explicit ethnotheories on child social and emotional learning development as they relate to gratitude being a foundational skill for developing self-awareness, awareness of others, and relationship skills, all important for understanding equity in global childhood contexts. Two theoretical and practical issues related to the virtue of gratitude guided our study: defining gratitude and its observable manifestations in children in two cultures in two LMICs.

Materials and methods

Research design

We utilized a phenomenological research design and the IST framework (Foley, 2003; Cox et al., 2021) to collect and understand the perspectives of Indigenous Turkana in Kenya and Amhara in Ethiopia about gratitude in children. The study design and framework guided our choice to use participatory research methodologies, including key informant interviews (KIIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs), to collect participants' lived experiences (Davidsen, 2013) of the gratitude phenomenon. Utilizing the design and framework, which we chose because of their suitability for conducting research in Indigenous communities, we asked two research questions: (a) What is adolescents and adults understanding of the virtue of gratitude among children aged 4–8 years? and (b) According to adolescents' and adults' lived experiences of engaging with grateful children, what are some observable manifestations of gratitude in children aged 4–8 years?

Participants and sample

Kenya

The project was conducted among the Turkana of northern Kenya, arid pastoralists who make up 14% of the Kenyan population and live in a harsh environment prone to devastating droughts and floods (Pike et al., 2010; Pike, 2004). According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) Demographic and Health Survey in 2014, Turkana County is the poorest of Kenya's 47 counties. Approximately 88% of the county's population lives below the national poverty line (KNBS, 2014). Among the Turkana, boys often herd livestock and are expected to take part in livestock raids (Akol, 2005) on neighboring communities, using the animals they seize for marriage dowries and to replenish stock.

Ethiopia

This study was conducted among the agricultural Amhara ethnolinguistic group living in the northern and central Ethiopian highlands (Demichelis, 2013). The Amhara region is characterized by frequent interethnic conflict, crime, and rampant unemployment (Mamed et al., 2025). Rural Amhara children are expected to support their parents by completing home chores, such as farm work (Dziak, 2022).

Sample

In total, 257 people, 117 in Kenya and 140 in Ethiopia, participated in the study. Of these participants, 185 were adults, and 72 were adolescents. Our study used a phenomenological research design and the IST framework. Although we initially planned only eight FGDs and at least eight KIIs for this qualitative phase, we decided to conduct a second wave of FGDs and KIIs with a different set of participants drawn from the study communities to both retain participant characteristics and ensure data saturation. Ultimately, our sample size was guided by the qualitative design, the diversity of participant groups, and the need to obtain sufficiently rich accounts from both cultural settings, as well as reach data saturation.

We present the sample distribution of participants in Tables 1, 2. We divided participants into two groups: adolescents, aged 12 to 18 years, and adults, aged 19 years and older, with an equal number of men and women recruited. Education level and age (broadly defined as adolescent and adult) were important data for determining the differences in how gratitude was perceived and how grateful children behave.

Table 1. Key informant interview participants.

KENYAETHIOPIA
Participant categoryPHASE 1PHASE 2TOTALPHASE 1PHASE 2TOTAL
Teachers10102071118
Community347336

A total of 27 participants took part in focus group discussions in Kenya and 24 in Ethiopia. In Kenya, Phase 1 included 13 participants while Phase 2 involved 14 participants. In Ethiopia, Phase 1 included 10 participants while Phase 2 involved 14 participants.

Table 2. Focus Group Discussion participants.

KENYAETHIOPIA
Participant categoryPHASE 1PHASE 2TOTALPHASE 1PHASE 2TOTAL
Adult304070263864
Adolescent101020262652

A total of 90 participants took part in focus group discussions in Kenya and 116 in Ethiopia. In Kenya, Phase 1 included 30 adults and 10 adolescents, while Phase 2 involved 40 adults and 10 adolescents, resulting in a total of 70 adults and 20 adolescents. In Ethiopia, Phase 1 included 26 adults and 26 adolescents, and Phase 2 involved 38 adults and 26 adolescents, bringing the total to 64 adults and 52 adolescents.

Materials and instruments

Our main data instruments were KII and FGD guides. Both instruments included the same discussion items and prompts; the only difference was which instrument was presented to participants. The guides' main items, which we report in this article, are participants' understandings and definitions of gratitude and, based on their experiences engaging with grateful children, what they perceived as observable behaviors the children manifested. We used KIIs with teachers and community leaders, such as the local chief and village headmen and -women, because locating them individually was more efficient than trying to get them in a group due to their routines. Participants' mixed educational and social backgrounds informed our decision to assign them to FGDs, which would allow them to support each other when responding to the discussion items.

Procedures

We utilized a phenomenological research design and the IST framework. The study design and framework guided our choice to use participatory research methods, including KIIs and FGDs, to collect participants' lived experiences (Davidsen, 2013) with the gratitude phenomenon. We audio-recorded both the KIIs and the gender- and age-disaggregated FGDs we conducted in the communities' local spoken languages. Our inclusion criterion was that participants had lived in the participating community for at least 5 years. Indeed, all our participants had been born in and lived in the participating communities. No respondents withdrew from the KIIs or FGDs. For transparency, for each KII and FGD, we kept a Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research form, a record of the interviewer's experience during the interview and the interview environment, among other important information, as discussed later.

The KIIs were conducted by two research assistants recruited from the participating communities to achieve two goals: that community members are actively involved in generating the evidence and that participants are reassured when they held interview sessions with familiar investigating staff who were also sensitive to the local cultural traditional values. The two goals align with both the phenomenological design and IST framework we utilized to collect and understand the data. Research assistants fluent in both the local languages and English conducted the interviews in the local languages and later translated the transcripts to English. Interviewers and notetakers allowed 45–60 min, leaving participants ample time to express themselves while ensuring the interview session did not become tedious (Jamshed, 2014; Zavattaro and Gille, 2026). In line with our study design and theoretical framework, we ensured that for male respondents, a male research assistant led the discussion while a female assistant took notes of participants' non-verbal cues and environmental aspects that could affect the participant's responses. The interview process was reversed for female respondents. Both interviewers and notetakers had at least a college-level education and at least 2 years' experience collecting data for previous projects we completed or research projects by other scientists. For participants' comfort, we asked them to choose interview venues based on their convenience. Venues included the local administrative offices, such as the chief's camp in Lokichogio, Turkana, and school classrooms in Gondar, Ethiopia. A guide for introducing the main discussion topic and related probing questions was used for all interviews. We ended interview sessions when respondents could no longer provide information related to the interview items.

At least three people, drawn from our research assistants and the investigating team, conducted the FGDs in the local languages: a moderator, who used a guide to lead the discussion and pose the main and probing questions to respondents; a notetaker; and one supervisor from the investigating team. The supervisor's duty was to draw the moderator's attention to any participant-related updates, such as a participant appearing to struggle to catch the moderator's attention. Similar to the KIIs, the FGDs, which took between 60 and 80 min, were conducted in community spaces agreed on by the respondents. We ended each session when we perceived no further contributions could be gathered from participants.

Data analysis

We analyzed the data thematically by adapting Braun and Clarke's (2006, 2014) six steps of thematic analysis. We started by transcribing and then translating the data from Ng'atrukana and Amharic to English with the help of local research assistants fluent in the Turkana and Amharic languages. We then organized the data, working with the whole team to fact-check and note any missing responses. Our investigating team then familiarized ourselves with the data, with each choosing at least three scripts and comparing the responses with the discussion items. Next, we worked as a group to generate initial codes; iteratively, we generated themes, reviewed and refined them as necessary, and defined and named them. We then organized the themes into categories aligned to the main project questions, identifying and interpreting common themes. Finally, we wrote the report. Throughout the study, all investigating team members maintained a reflexive journal of their perceptions of the developing study, which we used to understand the emerging themes and gain insight into why participants defined gratitude and its observable behaviors as they did.

Results

This cross-cultural study, anchored in a phenomenological research design guided by IST, sought participant perspectives on gratitude and its observable behaviors in children in two ethnic communities: the Turkana of northern Kenya and the Amhara of northern and central Ethiopia. This report pursues two questions: how do members of these communities define gratitude? and According to participants' experiences of engaging with grateful children, how does gratitude manifest in childhood? Generally, participants defined gratitude as both an innate universal human capacity and an individual ability. Additionally, participants thought that gratitude manifests in children through their emotional dispositions, social interactions, relationships, and other virtues. We present themes as they emerged from each participating community's perspective, highlighting commonalities and differences in defining gratitude and its expression in children.

Definitions of gratitude

We highlight Turkana and Amhara participants' definitions of gratitude in children aged 4–8 years. Participants variously defined gratitude as an innate capacity, an action, an expression of other virtues, and a feeling used to commune with both humans and the spirit world in acknowledging the good received from others and doing good to others. It reflects appreciation, thankfulness, and a positive response to acts of generosity or opportunities provided.

Participants perceived gratitude as an innate, universal human capacity

Participants considered gratitude to be an innate, universal human capacity all people have. They thought this capacity enabled the person to respond and behave appropriately as expected among their community members. Participants from both the Turkana and the Amhara understood gratitude as a mechanism to appreciate a good deed:

Gratitude is a mechanism of giving thanks to someone when he/she has done something grateful to you. (Adolescent male 1, Kenya)

Gratitude is a means through which we give thanks in return for a good thing someone has done for us. It is where we learn love. (Adult male 1, Ethiopia)

This innate capacity made the person not only express gratitude when they encountered good but also had the propensity to do what their community considers right. Some community expectations of children included attending school and avoiding conflict by embracing forgiveness:

Gratitude I think is a force. It is something that drives you to do something [expected of them], for example the force that makes you go to school. (Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) teacher female, Ethiopia)

Gratitude is every time even when someone does you wrong, you just tell him/her “thank you. (Adolescent female 1, Kenya)

Participants understood gratitude as an action

Participants thought that one needed to act a certain way to bring out the meaning of gratitude. They could verbalize their appreciation or even behave in a way to exemplify their sentiments. In Ethiopia, participants understood the action as a verbal response to a good deed from another person, while those in Kenya interpreted the action as directed to both humans and spirits:

Gratitude is our verbal response to what is done to us that is more than a gift. (Adolescent female 3, Ethiopia)

Gratitude is every time even when someone does you wrong, you just tell him/her “thank you.” (Adolescent female 3, Kenya)

According to me, gratitude is paying/giving back what somebody has done for you. For example, you have gone out looking for your animal that has got lost but with good luck you found it, you thank God for that. That is also gratitude to me. (Adult male 2, Kenya)

Participants described gratitude as an expression of other virtues

Both Kenyan and Ethiopian participants thought that gratitude was an expression of other virtues, such as kindness, charity, and faith, that moves toward a higher good. A child who expressed kindness was also deemed grateful:

Gratitude is an expression of kindness to others. For example, my child has been excluded from school due to unpaid school fees and I seek help from someone and they give me the fees. I will thank God for doing good things [kind] to me through that person. Recognizing the assistance that person did to me when I was in a problem. (Female adult, 3 Kenya)

Gratitude is a kind response to someone who has done something good for us. Gratitude means love. He is a grateful person who lives in love. Saying thank you is an expression of happiness. (Adult male 4, Ethiopia)

According to Kenyan participants, gratitude was a mechanism for communing with both humans and spirits. These participants perceived gratitude as a means of communing with both humans and the spirit world. Participants also thought of gratitude as a feeling that expresses appreciation and thankfulness in response to acts of kindness, support, or blessings from other people and the spiritual world, a feeling elicited when they received something good. This good could be received from others, result from the person's own efforts, or occur spontaneously.

Gratitude is when someone was searching for something for a long time but when he/she finds it he/she becomes grateful. (Adult female 8, Kenya)

Gratitude is responding appropriately to God for making you see a new day and for giving you effort and energy to get food without knowing you will find it or eventually you had nothing to cook for children but unfortunate meet with someone who gave you money/food to go and cook for children without knowing, then give back thanks to him/her for assisting you. (Adult female 11, Kenya)

Observable behaviors of grateful children according to participants

The second main item participants responded to was their perceptions of how to discern gratitude in children. Participants in Kenya and Ethiopia unanimously agreed that when a child was grateful, people around the child could observe it. Additionally, all participants agreed that gratitude was more dispositional and enduring than a fleeting trait catalyzed by an external stimulus. Participants noted that gratitude manifested in children through their emotional dispositions, social interactions and relationships with others, their moral values, their actions and behaviors, and other positive character traits.

Discernible emotional dispositions in children according to participants

Generally, more participants in Kenya than in Ethiopia thought that gratitude was a positive emotional disposition inherent in a child:

A grateful child is often cheerful, contented, confident, motivated and curious. A grateful child is often content with what they have and motivated to help their peers. (Adult female 13, Ethiopia)

According to me, I expect a grateful child to have a smiley face every time I see him/her. I also expect that child to be joyful, [and display contentment] even when he/she is among others. (Adult male 3, Kenya)

I expect to see facial expressions from that child. i.e. smile from his/her face, happiness and last the how much gratitude he/she will give to that person. (Adolescent male 9, Kenya)

A grateful child is always cheerful... (they are always seemingly joyful) and happy while in class.... That child always learns to share whenever he/ she has more than what he/she needs,... always embraces that sharing spirit. That child is always respectful to both his peers and teachers. (Headteacher 2, Kenya)

Participants discerned gratitude through social interactions and relationships

According to participants in both Kenya and Ethiopia, gratitude could be discerned by how children interacted with people in the community. Humble, courteous, respectful, and kind children were seen to be grateful for what they had. These qualities guided how they related to others:

A grateful child has a good relationship with everyone, is a good communicator, and is generally gentle and complimentary. (ECDE teacher 3, Ethiopia)

A grateful child behaves well because he/she is grateful... happy and welcoming because he/she is joyful of whatever he/she has received. (Headteacher 1, Kenya)

From what I know, grateful children are always humble. A grateful child always behaves in a sympathetic manner regarding how he/she is treating others. (Adult male 6, Kenya)

Participants discerned gratitude through moral values

Children's gratefulness is discernible from the values they display. Grateful children were prudent, responsible, forgiving, and easily took up leadership positions, including their responsibilities:

A grateful child welcomes visitors... responsible and mature... much love to parents. (Community elder 1, Kenya)

A [grateful] child is polite, decent... active and responsible. (Area chief 1, Kenya)

They always act/behave in a manner that suggests they are in charge of the family when the parents are away. (Adult male 11, Kenya)

Grateful children respect elders, do what they are told, and take responsibility at home. (Female Community mobilizer 2, Ethiopia)

Positive character traits related to gratitude according to participants.

Grateful children also exhibit other positive character traits closely related to gratitude. Among these are humility, patience, diligence, and patriotism:

From what I know, grateful children are always humble. A grateful child always behaves in a sympathetic manner regarding how he/she is treating others. (Adult male 8, Kenya)

Grateful children have a respectful, and patriotic character. (Vice administrator 1, Ethiopia)

Discussion

Our findings show that gratitude is a valued virtue whose expression depends on a community's cultural traditions. The IST was useful, allowing us to understand how the different cultural traditions, represented by the participants, defined and discerned gratitude among children according to their community's values, knowledge, and ways of being. This article reported on a cross-cultural study on the virtue of gratitude in children in two ethnic communities: the Turkana of northern Kenya and the Amhara of northern and central Ethiopia. This report presented adolescents' and adults' perspectives based on their lived experiences of engaging with grateful children.

Participants perceived gratitude as an innate, universal human capacity

In this study, participants defined gratitude as an innate, universal human capacity, believing that it enabled people to respond and behave appropriately with community members. From their understanding of gratitude, participants concluded that gratitude manifests in observable behaviors within cultural boundaries. Other scholars who support this characterization of gratitude include Liang et al. (2022), who studied Chinese children aged approximately 10 years and found that gratitude consists of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components, capacities humans manifest behaviorally in cultural contexts. Furthermore, similar to definitions also given by scholars, including Ramsey et al. (2018) and Emmons and McCullough (2003), Obeldobel and Kerns (2021) also noted that gratitude includes cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components.

Gratitude as an action

The study found that gratitude is an action, which is also widely supported in the literature. Participants believed that gratitude could be observed in an act or speech linked to other cognitively mediated virtues, including respect and kindness. Referencing children, Hussong et al. (2019b) note that gratitude is an action that comes from a cognitively mediated socio-emotional process. This definition of gratitude has a connection to the three perspectives of gratitude explored in scholarship: simple verbal gratitude (Baumgarten-Tramer, 1938; Wang et al., 2015), referring to verbally expressing appreciation for being a recipient of a good deed; more concrete gratitude (Poelker and Gibbons, 2018), involving accompanying the expression of gratitude with a concrete gift, which could be an action; and finally, connective gratitude, which is considered to be at a more complex level (Wang et al., 2015; Mokrova et al., 2018; Poelker and Gibbons, 2018), as seen in reciprocal behavior akin to paying good with good.

Gratitude as related to other virtues

Participants understood gratitude as closely related to other virtues, which is also generally supported in scholarship from other parts of the world. Indeed, Roman philosopher Cicero said that ‘[g]ratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.' In a study focusing on the nature of relationships among virtues in schoolchildren in the United Kingdom, Kristjánsson et al. (2017) found that gratitude was closely related to compassion and that the two virtues may mutually reinforce each other. Our study's participants understood gratitude as being related to virtues such as kindness, charity, and faith. Indeed, Emmons and Crumpler (2000) noted that a number of components compose gratitude: emotion, moral sentiment, virtue, coping response, and even an attitude. In addition, relating gratitude to other virtues, Watkins et al. (2003) acknowledged that gratitude involves a sense of abundance and the calmness accompanying it.

Gratitude as a means of communion with both humans and the spirit world

Participants in our study experienced gratitude as a means of communion with both humans and spirits. World religions consider gratitude as a means of freedom from resentment and a doorway to communing with the inner self and spiritual world. Both Nouwen et al. (2010) and Ustazah (2024, January) note that Christianity and Islam consider gratitude as freeing a person from resentment and destructive thought, preparing them for enthusiastic involvement in good that often attracts good in return. In this way, gratitude both frees the person and gives them a path to engage with others for mutual benefit.

Manifestations of gratitude in children

Our findings show that participants believed that in children, gratitude could be seen in their emotional dispositions; how they interacted with others; their moral values, actions, and behaviors; and other character traits. Indeed, Castro et al. (2011) and Freitas et al. (2009) note that children as young as 5 years could understand the construct of gratitude. Additionally, Hussong et al. (2019b) note that gratitude is a cognitively mediated socio-emotional process. A child has to be aware of good and be intrinsically motivated to repay in kind. Culture plays an important role in how children learn (Ng'asike, 2011; Ng'askie, 2024). Our participants all agreed that gratitude could be observed in the actions, behaviors, and emotional dispositions of children as young as 4 years. For example, study participants interpreted behaviors such as kindness, responsibility, diligence, and observable temperaments, such as cheerfulness, optimism, and curiosity, as indications of gratitude in children. Several scholars who conducted studies with adult populations, including Watkins et al. (2003); McCullough et al. (2002); Sansone and Sansone (2010); Froh et al. (2008); Wood et al. (2008), and Rusk et al. (2015), acknowledge that some of these behaviors are positively related to gratitude.

Limitations and future directions

We acknowledge some important limitations regarding interpreting our findings. First, we worked with two communities in Kenya and Ethiopia, the Turkana and Amhara, respectively. Although our study was innovative and is one of the few focusing on gratitude in children, particularly in the Global South, we appreciate the limited generalizability presented when data are collected from only two communities and only two countries in eastern Africa, a continent with 55 countries and five geographic regions. We hope that future studies may include more countries and regions in Africa. Second, for this study, we relied on adult and adolescent reflections on child manifestations of gratitude. This could introduce bias when adults' and adolescents' experiences unduly impact their reflections. We suggest that future studies triangulate adult and adolescent reflections with data collected directly from children. Finally, we worked with only one ethnic community per country. We suggest that future studies work with more ethnic communities per country to collect their understandings of gratitude and related virtues for comparison.

Conclusion

Among most of the Turkana and Amhara participants, the definitions and expected expressions presented by adolescents and adults of children's gratitude align with the perspectives presented in extant literature. The major differences between the literature and the two communities' perspectives include the stress participants place on gratitude as a mechanism for communing with both humans and the spirit world. Participants' linking gratitude to other virtues, including kindness, humility, and responsibility, and attitudes, such as cheerfulness, potentially expands the understanding of character virtue in scholarship. Undeniably, understanding culturally based definitions and expected expressions of gratitude in children based on participants' lived experiences and Indigenous participatory research methods could be one way to appreciate the contextual factors that impact child character development and expression. Future studies may collect the same information from other ethnic communities in Africa to find similarities with our findings.

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Footnotes

Edited by: Annalisa Valle, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Italy

Reviewed by: Fathima Dewan, Durban University of Technology, South Africa

Manfred Janik, University of Namibia, Namibia

Statements

Conflict of interest

The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Funding

The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. This publication is based on research supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc. (funder DOI 501100011730) under grant https://doi.org/10.54224/31957.

Data availability

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics approval

In Kenya, the study was reviewed and approved by University of Kabianga Institutional Scientific Ethics Review Committee (ISERC) Number: ISERC/2023/0001 and in Ethiopia, by the V/President of Research and Technology Transfer (VPRTT) Number: VP/RTT/05/294. Lastly, we were given national permit to conduct the study by the Kenyan National Commission for Science Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI) Number: NACOSTI/P/24/36663. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent for participation in this study was provided by the participants' legal guardians/next of kin.

Author contributions

PW: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. MM: Investigation, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the support we got from our entire team, including our research assistants John Epuu, Lawrence Lobenyol, Simon Kouriang, and Collins Kiprotich. We are grateful for the support we received from Daniel Rono in data acquisition.

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Citation

Wadende, P. A. & Mengstie, M. M. (2026). Gratitude in childhood: ethnotheories from the Turkana of Kenya and Amhara of Ethiopia. Frontiers in Developmental Psychology, Volume 4. https://doi.org/
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Copyright © 2026 Wadende and Mengstie.

License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

*Correspondence: Pamela Akinyi Wadende

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