Motivation and emotion/Book/2021/Gratitude

Gratitude:
What is gratitude, what causes it, what are its consequences, and how can it be fostered?

Multimedia presentation (3 min)

Overview

Gratitude, a word we are continuously reading and hearing about. Is it merely another buzzword, or should we be paying more attention to this seemingly complex phenomenon?

The emotion, gratitude, became popularised during the rise of positive psychology, thanks to Martin Seligman. Studies within the positive psychology space consider gratitude as a state, trait, and therapeutic tool.

This book chapter explores the emotion of gratitude, its psychological functions, personal and social consequences, and the interventions used to foster gratitude cross-culturally.

Focus questions: What is gratitude and how is it distinct from other emotions? What are the psychological functions of gratitude? What are the positive and negative consequences of gratitude? What therapeutic interventions and techniques foster gratitude? Is gratitude cross-culturally applicable?

Gratitude defined

Figure 1: Gratitude can be displayed by giving thanks.

Gratitude is a state of thankfulness in response to an act of kindness, and the eagerness to display appreciation and to reciprocate the goodness. The word gratitude originated from the Latin word gratia, meaning grace, graciousness, or gratefulness. Commonly associated with emotions such as appreciation, thankfulness, and generosity, gratitude embodies these words by attributing positive outcomes of the self as a result of a greater external cause.Put simply, gratitude is a response to benevolence. Gratitude has been considerably overseen in the social sciences until the 21st century .

Gratitude is not an uncommon emotion, Chipperfield, Perry, and Weiner (2003) found that in a group of older adults, gratitude was in the top three most common positive emotions. Hence, gratitude warrants greater scientific attention. The lack of focus on gratitude can be simply explained by its complexity. Reeve (2018) regarded gratitude to be a cognitively complex emotion; this complexity may have been too challenging to conceptualise, until recent years. The positive and adaptive outcomes of gratitude are too beneficial for psychologists and social scientists to ignore.

Distinguishing gratitude from other emotions

Emotions are the affective and time-limited responses that result from significant environmental shifts. When we consider pleasant emotions, happiness and joy may come to mind. Gratitude is similar to happiness but the main difference being with the precedent of the emotion. Gratitude is unique as its onset begins with the awareness from the individual that they have received the benefit. Upon receiving something of value from another person, emotions such as indebtedness may be present. Gratitude is distinct from indebtedness. Indebtedness incurs feelings such as owing and anxiety while true gratitude should promote feelings of wellbeing and warmth. This mindset shift from “I owe you for that” to “I am grateful for you” relies on the situational features of the exchange. A study by Watkins, Scheer, Ovnicek, and Kolts (2006) found people to feel a sense of obligation when the gift has “strings attached” such as an expectation of reciprocity. Gratitude typically occurs when the recipient is open and rises above their ego to allow space for an advancing relationship with the giver .

Psychological Functions of Gratitude

Figure 2: Gratitude is an important component of prosocial behaviour and social relationships.

Take a moment to reflect on a time where you had received a gift, compliment, or some assistance. How did you feel? How did you want to act next? I would not be surprised if you thought of concepts such as thankfulness and friendship. It may be reasonable to believe that your next course of action may be to reciprocate that feeling back to the giver or others. How do we conceptualise the psychological phenomena of gratitude?

Much of the literature surrounding gratitude refers to the work of McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons, and Larson (2001). McCullough et al. (2001) proposed three prosocial and morally relevant psychological features of gratitude. This is that gratitude is a benefit detector, reinforcer, and motivator.

Benefit Detector

Also considered within the literature as a moral barometer, gratitude could be considered as the benefit detector of emotions for moral and prosocial behaviours. Gratitude serves to alert the individual of their receiving and benefit from another person. Research has indicated several relevant variables which may increase the magnitude of the gratitude from the beneficiary. These include the recognition of the goodness of the giver, when the benefit is received unexpectedly or when the receiver is genuinely surprised by the benefit, benefits received by people of high status, and the lack of obligation or social pressure to reciprocate the benefit.

Reinforcer

McCullough also discovered the reinforcing nature of gratitude to increase the likelihood of future moral and prosocial acts. Research has found that gratitude has reinforced positive, prosocial behaviours such as an increase in tips from customers and volunteering behaviours for concerns such as HIV/AIDS. Expressions of gratitude such as saying thanks, giving appreciation and acknowledgment all serve to reinforce prosocial behaviours. These expressions are considered moral as it is motivated from the concern of another person’s wellbeing.

Motivator

Gratitude is supported to motivate prosocial and moral behaviours. Reeve (2018) describes the motivational urge or action tendency of gratitude to come from a desire to act prosocially and to grow the relationship with another person. As a result of gratitude, we are motivated to be moral and contribute kindness, giving, and acts of altruism to friendships, relationships, and society as a whole.

Consequences of gratitude

Positive Consequences of gratitude

The positive outcomes of regularly practicing gratitude cultivate a mass of psychological, physical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and spiritual benefits.

Personal outcomes

Within a grateful person, studies have supported that we can expect greater happiness, decreased distress and adaptive outcomes in chronic stress and pain. Gratitude provides the opportunity to connect with something bigger than oneself. Whether this is other people, nature, or a higher power. The mindfulness within gratitude allows us to ground and take pleasure in the good times, experiences, people, and circumstances in our lives. This connection may in turn have great therapeutic outcomes in times of adversity.

Social Outcomes

Gratitude has a great social function. As explored, gratitude fosters the reciprocity of prosocial and moral behaviours which in turn strengthens and maintains social relationships and increases positive interpersonal behaviour. Tsang and Martin (2017) consider gratitude to be the “social lubricant” that encourages cooperation and social harmony in society.

Negative consequences of gratitude

Most philosophers agree that gratitude entails positive emotions, yet Manela (2015) argues against this notion by exploring the negativity surrounding gratitude. His motivation to explore this stems from his perception that philosophers paint a warm and rosy image of gratitude, Manela’s paper strived to overcome these generalisations with the notion that gratitude is an affective disposition, meaning that the emotion tends to be present within the context of only certain situations:

Negative feelings in response to benevolence

Imagine a situation where an individual would put their life at risk to save another’s, resulting in permanent disability for the person who stepped in and no injury for the original person in harm’s way. While, in theory, this act should yield great gratitude and thankfulness, Manela proposed that, rather, we would expect painful, guilty or aversive emotions resulting from this sacrifice. In these situations, we are overwhelmed with the need to both thank and apologise to the beneficiary, rather than transcend, accept and appreciate as gratitude simply entails. Here it is quite difficult to move from a place of indebtedness to one of gratitude.

Unwanted benevolence

The intensity in which the receiver values the benefit will enhance the expression of gratitude. Manela proposed a situation in which the benefit is not valued or appreciated by the receiver; maybe this benefit offends the receiver. Theoretically, the receiver owes no gratitude to the giver. With this situation considered, there may be major complications for the development and reinforcement of moral and prosocial behaviours.

Manela’s view on human nature, while interesting to consider, was largely pessimistic. The vast majority of the literature resonates with the positive psychology perspective and its assumptions of gratitude.

Therapeutic interventions that foster gratitude

Gratitude can be felt and expressed in many forms. We can be grateful for the past, present, and future, for ourselves and others. The following are techniques that have been clinically supported to have a component of gratitude.

Figure 4: Gratitude journalling

Mindfulness and Meditation

Gratitude requires a mindful awareness and attention to the goodness in one’s life. Intentional Systematic Mindfulness (ISM) is a method of healing that focuses on how one directs their mindful attention, and the quality of this attention. ISM facilitates gratitude via a process of mindfulness and meditation to guide their mindful attention adaptively.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness Intervention (FI) assists in healing individuals to forgive important life events or people or creates a space in which the individual can imagine being forgiven by their victim. FI provides the opportunity to be grateful for the gift of forgiveness.

Gratitude Journalling

Gratitude journaling consists of the identification of the aspects of one’s life, in which they are grateful, and documenting this in a journal. This technique has been widely used and associated with increased overall wellbeing, positive affect, and improved social relationships .

Activity: List 3 things that you are grateful for. This can be in your head, written in a journal, or expressed to another person.

Cross-cultural expressions of gratitude

Gratitude is a highly appreciated trait among Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim religions. Due to the diversity in language, values and customs cross-culturally, it would be sound to assume that the norms of expressing gratitude are varied globally. The most typical expression of gratitude in English speakers is to say “thank you”. For Southeast Asians and West Africans, saying “thank you” is not a part of their gratitude practice and in some cases, may be considered strange to say. Whereas in most western societies, a lack of “thank you” may be considered rude.

Based on Buddhist philosophy, Naikan Therapy uses meditation to draw awareness and deepen the connection to the client’s morality and interpersonal relationships. The word “Naikan” comes from the idea of looking inward and embodying gratefulness and mindfulness. Naikan Therapy is popular in Japan, Austria, Germany, and the United States.

Case Study: Ms. A Ms. A was a 66-year-old Japanese woman who had settled in a large city in the east of Japan. Her father was a violent alcoholic; her mother worked hard because her father did not work regularly. Her father died when Ms. A was in her twenties. Since the age of 62, she has been on welfare because of her being bankrupt. Ms. A started gambling at age 37, betting small amounts of money. During her 40s, she gambled every weekend, but she did not lose control. At age 53, her mother died of pneumonia. Although this death was an accident, Ms. A felt deep guilt, thinking, “My mother might not have died if she had been living with me.” After her mother’s death, Ms. A began to engage in gambling behavior during her free time, every day, except during working hours, in an attempt to relieve these guilty feelings, or, as she puts it, “to forget it all.” Naikan Therapy was used in an attempt to elevate the feelings of guilt Ms. A has been experiencing. Her therapist used “The Three Naikan Themes”: What have others done for you? What have you done for others in return? What troubles have you caused for others? Throughout therapy, these questions are frequently visited to relieve the guilt through recall and exploration of these themes. Ms. A experienced a combination of Naikan Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to address her issue.

Outcomes of Intervention

As a result of the intervention, Ms. A discovered that she had been justifying her gambling addiction with the guilt and resentment she had felt toward her parents. At this point, Ms. A came to acceptance with her reality and her mindset had shifted. This is shown as she openly believes that her mother does love her and Ms. A’s negative sentiments are significantly reduced. Following her intervention, Ms. A continues Naikan Therapy and CBT once a month and has achieved 1 year of abstinence from gambling.

Check your Learning

1 McCullough et al. (2001) proposed three psychological features of gratitude. This is that gratitude is a ____, reinforcer, and motivator. Stimulator Reciprocator Benefit detector Social tool 2 Naikan Therapy is based on ___ philosophy Christian Buddhist Jewish Muslim

Summary

Gratitude is a common human emotion, facilitated by the awareness that one has received a benefit from another person. Gratitude is associated with positive emotions and outcomes. The benefits of regularly cultivating gratitude are holistic, healing, and preventative. Psychological outcomes include greater happiness and decreased distress, physical outcomes such as adaptive outcomes pain, and the social outcomes are progressive with gratitude reinforcing prosocial and moral behaviours.

A major limitation of the study of gratitude is its lack of reach. A future recommendation is to extend the learning of gratitude into the classroom and workplace. Education surrounding the benefits of gratitude could be pivotal in mental health and development.

The practical, take-home message of this chapter is that it is worth taking a moment to ground yourself, become mindful of who you are and what you are experiencing at this moment, and be grateful!

See also

• Flourishing (Book chapter, 2018)
• Gratitude (Wikipedia)
• Kindness and happiness (Book chapter, 2015)
• Mindfulness (Book chapter, 2011)

External links

• An antidote to dissatisfaction (YouTube)
• The psychology of gratitude (Google Books)
• TED Talk: Want to be happy? Be grateful (YouTube)
• 365 Grateful project (Stories about the extraordinary power of gratitude)