The Power of Gratitude
Like most parents, I drilled my young kids on the importance of saying “thank you” to others. Nagged them, really. After all, words of gratitude are an important social convention, a way of letting others know you value and appreciate them and their support. Plus saying “thank you” is the right thing to do.
What I didn’t teach them—because I didn’t know it at the time—was how they themselves might benefit from saying “thank you.” An emerging body of research is now showing that genuine expressions of gratitude can be tonic not just for the recipient, but for those who are saying “thank you” as well. Indeed, being grateful—and saying so—can change the very way we think about our closest relationships.
One scientist who has been rigorously deconstructing gratitude is Nathaniel Lambert of Florida State University. In a recent study, he and several colleagues decided to explore whether the simple act of expressing thankfulness might be linked to a deeper sense of commitment and responsibility toward someone else. To find out, the psychologists recruited a large group of young men and women and gathered information on their most intimate relationships, including the frequency and manner in which they expressed their gratitude toward their partner. They also questioned them about the strength of their relationship, focusing especially on feelings of responsibility for their partner’s happiness and welfare.
They wanted to see if there was any connection between thankfulness and the quality of the partnership. And there was, clearly. Those who were more expressive of their gratitude toward their partner saw their commitment as deeper and the relationship as more mutually supportive. They also measured these perceptions six weeks later, to see if gratitude was linked to an increase in relationship quality over time. And, again, it was.
These findings are intriguing—but limited. They don’t say anything about whether expressing thanks actually leads to improved feelings about a relationship. So Lambert and his colleagues decided to run another experiment to sort this out. In this study, they actually manipulated gratitude. They had a group of volunteers deliberately increase their verbal or written expressions of thanks toward a close friend. They were instructed to “go the extra mile” in really demonstrating their feelings of gratitude. For comparison, other volunteers merely thought grateful thoughts—without expressing them—while others focused on positive memories of time together. At the end of the three weeks, they compared the volunteers’ attitudes toward their relationship.
There was no doubt about cause-and-effect this time. As reported on-line in the journal Psychological Science, those who more frequently spoke or wrote their words of thanks saw their relationship as more mutual and cooperative as a result. Importantly, merely thinking about being grateful did not improve relationships. So words count.
What’s going on here? The scientists believe that saying “thank you” sends a message not only to one’s partner but to oneself as well. It changes our self-perceptions. The very act of saying “thank you” reinforces one’s desire for a mutually supportive relationship and increases dependency, which triggers trust and in turn deepens a relationship. In this way, saying “thank you” initiates a spiral of kindness and appreciation in relationships. And what’s more, it’s not complicated.
Comments
True an important part of one’s best personal survival is being appreciated; it helps make life worth living.
Moreover, the giver of appreciation to others does actually receive some important self-appreciation from the act of giving it
However, when the act of giving appreciation reduces to a mere “thank you”, it quickly becomes a mere over-used routine act; and, thus boring enough to the receiver that an equally boring reply self-evolves, say something like, “no problem”.
Soon a “thank you” means nothing to anyone, neither givers nor receivers.
A better means of really showing true appreciation for the betterment of life others are making for each other world wide.
Thanks,
bob
Another way to look at this is through the historical lens. By and large people tended to live in very tight quarters. In the cities, the houses were close together and extended families would occupy a house. In agricultural areas, even though there were often large tracts of land, extended families often still lived together in a smaller house and neighbors, although distant, relied upon each other just to stay alive. Verbally expressing gratitude for assistance was very important in order to ease the conflicts that arise from perpetually being in close quarters with others all the time. Even though it may have been routine to do so, it was still accepted as the attempt to demonstrate appreciation for effort and an acknowledgement that some act required a “thank you”. To not do so was either pure laziness or an insult. So routine or not, expressing thanks is important.
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