Gratitude
How do we learn to truly enjoy the progress we’ve made in life, to be happy with what we have achieved? This is where the notion of gratitude comes in. Gratitude in itself is quite explanatory; the act of being grateful, or the quality of being thankful. Gratitude is often associated with the thanks of a kind act, and is coupled with a readiness to return this kindness. More recently, research has looked at the use of gratitude in determining happiness in one’s life through analysis of all of the ‘good’ things present, rather than looking at specific acts of kindness.
Gratitude can often feel like a buzzword phrase, used by those perched behind Instagram accounts and in the headquarters of online marketing, drooling over the chance to maximise views on their websites. It seems to have gained a reputation as one of the cheesy, cliché words used by middle aged mums who have been fooled into spending £500 on an ‘aura-restoring’ face cream.
This slightly cheesy reputation it has developed is a shame, because it is actually one of the most researched aspects of positive human psychology. “What’s so special about gratitude then? Stop complaining and just get on with it” the old timely man with slightly outdated views scoffs. Interestingly, gratitude has been shown to uniquely predict satisfaction with life (1). What’s even more interesting about this, as part of a study by Wood and colleagues across Universities in England, is that their research showed gratitude held incremental validity above the facets and domains of the Big Five.
What the fuck does that actually mean? Good question. For those of you who prefer to speak like normal human beings and not in the language of professors and researchers, Wood’s study showed that even when you account for extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism - a.k.a ‘The Big 5’ main traits that cover the majority of personalities held in humans - gratitude still upheld its significance in determining satisfaction with life. To summarise; it doesn’t matter if you’re extraverted or introverted, agreeable or hostile, open or closed-minded, conscientious or lacking direction, neurotic or emotionally stable: gratitude can help you become more satisfied with your life.
Of course, with all research, it’s important to note its flaws and limitations - hence the term ‘appeared’ to correlate. And unfortunately, it’s important to note that about 73.5% of the participants in this study by Woods and his colleagues were white - thus severely limiting it’s application to a broader spectrum of ethnicities. This is particularly important when we consider the significant impact of social injustice and racism on specific minority groups, which is known to correlate with levels of perceived happiness (3).
With this being said, Wood’s study is one of thousands of research papers on the practice of gratitude, curating a positive association with happiness, satisfaction with life and social functioning.
And the research doesn’t just stop at being grateful versus not being grateful - oh no. Researchers are now exploring the multiple variations of gratitude practice, analysing which strategy works best for our modern well-being and happiness. Research doesn’t get that far if the idea of interest holds no credibility in the first place! Regan and colleagues in 2022 (ref) completed a study that looked at the difference between gratitude journaling (short form, the more common version) and gratitude letters (long form, the less common version). While both gratitude activities improved subjective reports of well-being in the 958 Australians, gratitude letters directed to an individual produced greater feelings of positive emotion, elevation and overall gratitude. This connection to other humans that potentiates our feelings of gratitude is not surprising, given that our whole existence is built on our ability to connect and interact with one another - something we will come on to in Chapter 9.
Research by Sheldon and Yu in 2021 (ref), following the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, looked at the difference between online gratitude (email, texting) versus face-to-face gratitude. The pandemic certainly created a plethora of challenges, with a lack of face-to-face interaction and connection causing significant impact on many of our social relations, health and happiness. But does gratitude directed at others need to be in person? Interestingly, the researchers found that from their combination of 363 US and Taiwanese college students, there was no real difference in reported levels of positive emotions and well-being when comparing online to in-person gratitude activities. Alternative research looking at social interactions tells us that the inclusion of voice (phone calls, video calls) creates better social-bonds than the absence of voice (emailing, texting) (ref), but this is not quite the same as gratitude practice.
While the research surrounding gratitude practice is rapidly building, we are still lacking in areas that would enable us absolute certainty in all aspects regarding it’s application. We can however be confident that gratitude plays an important part in our overall happiness, albeit its true extent, we currently do not know.
This then raises arguably the most important question of all - why are we not all more grateful? Why is the rushing commuter pushing past me on the way to the tube not beaming from ear to ear to show their gratitude for having a job in the first place? Why is the young teenager not gleefully smiling about their head to toe new outfit that was gifted to them? Why is the primary school teacher not peacefully enjoying the chance to be outside during break time? (To be honest this is more likely due to the heavy air pollution in London causing a dense smog that blocks all signs of life rather than a lack of gratitude from the Teacher, but we’ll gloss over this aspect in this imaginary scenario).
Well, part of the answer to this question is that many of us do not know how good we have it. We are so swept up in our lives, by social media, by getting that promotion, by achieving that financial goal, by getting married, having babies, going to fancy restaurants - that we often do not stop to appreciate all of the amazing things that are happening in our lives. Of course, some of us are less fortunate and do not have access to a tangible promotion, or the chance to get married and have babies, or financial stability. But the great thing about gratitude is that it is not specific to external materials or goods - in reality, we would want gratitude to take the form of simple intangible things, like the glaze of the sun or the trickling of the rain on a glass roof.
The other part of the answer is that not all of us are actively practising gratitude. Unfortunately, just being aware of the good things in our life does not automatically translate into absorbing the benefits of gratitude practice. It is a skill, and one that takes time to reap its rewards. We are still learning about gratitude from a scientific perspective, and so we do not have all the answers on how to perfectly embed it into our daily lives. Things like gratitude journaling, gratitude letters or even a quick thank you text are well supported by research, but that does not automatically equate to people practising gratitude.
So whether it is sending a short text to someone, organising a longer phone call, showing some genuine appreciation in person or even by considering these in your head; including gratitude practice in your life is a great method to boost your happiness. It doesn’t have to be specific to a person, but our innate nature as humans suggests that if we can target it towards other people, we may end up feeling even better as we begin to reap the rewards of better social bonding.