I only skimmed the article, did the authors address the difference between genuine gratittude and brown-nosing? After an exercise I did where I contacted a fair

I only skimmed the article, did the authors address the difference between genuine gratittude and brown-nosing? After an exercise I did where I contacted a fair number of powerful people this finding sounds counterintuitive, the truly powerful (if they responded at all) were invariably gracious and generous, while the only negative response came from a university professor who had more power than me but much less than the majority on the list.