This naturalistic study examines how broad societal events like the COVID-19 pandemic affect children’s gratitude expressions for general and specific categories of needs. Gratitude expressions (N = 6908) written by children in the United States (N = 3613, M_age = 6.96 years) before the pandemic (November 2018, 2019) and during the pandemic (November 2020, 2021) were collected from online newspapers. The gratitude expressions were coded for general and specific categories based on Maslow’s Theory of Motivation. Between time periods, there was no difference in prevalence of gratitude for the fulfillment of the general categories of deficiency needs (physiological, safety, belongingness and love, esteem) and growth needs (cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization, and transcendence) as well as the specific sub-categories that they subsume. However, within time periods, there was a greater prevalence for the fulfillment of deficiency than growth needs, especially the specific category of love and belongingness. Together these results highlight the enduring nature of particular categories in the face of a broad societal event and have implications for public policies and services aimed at protecting children and meeting their needs.

这项自然主义研究探讨了像 COVID-19 大流行这样的广泛社会事件如何影响儿童对一般和特定类别需求的感激表达。收集了疫情前（2018年11月、2019年11月）和疫情期间（2020年11月、2021年11月） 美国儿童（N  =3613，M_年龄=6.96岁）撰写的感谢表达（N =6908  ）。基于马斯洛的动机理论，感恩表达被编码为一般和特定类别。在不同时期之间，对满足一般类别的缺陷需求（生理、安全、归属感和爱、尊重）和成长需求（认知、审美、自我实现和超越）的感激之情没有差异。作为它们所包含的特定子类别。然而，在一段时间内，满足不足的需求比成长需求更普遍，尤其是爱和归属感的特定类别。这些结果共同凸显了特定类别在广泛的社会事件面前的持久性，并对旨在保护儿童和满足其需求的公共政策和服务产生影响。