Why/How Gratitude Boosts Happiness

Why does gratitude seem to contribute to so many positive outcomes? How does having an "attitude of gratitude" actually lead to greater happiness? Researchers have found significant emotional, mental, social, and physiological benefits to practicing gratitude: 

• Grateful living promotes the savoring of positive life experiences. Gratitude is highly present-oriented; it helps us notice and appreciate what’s going right in life right now (Lyubomirsky, 2013).  

• Gratitude is correlated with positive emotional benefits such as emotional intelligence (Preś et al., 2020), joy (Watkins et al., 2018), high self-esteem and feelings of personal empowerment. This may be because people who feel good about themselves are more likely to recognize the care others show them and feel grateful in return (Bartlett et al., 2020). 

• Practicing gratitude can be a constructive coping behavior in the face of stress and trauma. Studies have shown that gratitude can decrease the harmful effects of trauma and lead to positive, rather than negative, outcomes afterwards (Kumar et al., 2021; Vieselmeyer et al., 2017). It can also assist in the reframing of negative events or triggers so that one can focus on the positive rather than the negative (Boggio et al., 2020). For example, someone injured in a serious car accident may focus on gratitude for surviving and for the support they received afterward.  

• Gratitude encourages prosocial and moral behavior. Grateful individuals are more likely to help others due to a natural desire to reciprocate kindness (Preś et al., 2020). This effect is observed even across generations, when people reflect on sacrifices made by those in the past and are more motivated to “pay it forward” (Watkins & Goodwin, 2020). When feeling threatened, those who exhibit gratitude are less likely to engage in competitive behavior (Sasaki et al., 2020). They are also less materialistic; they appreciate what they have and are more likely to feel that they already live in a state of abundance. Showing gratitude can also increase cooperation among others, even bystanders (Vaish & Savell, 2022). 

• Gratitude increases a feeling of purpose in one’s life by enhancing appreciation and attention to what one has. This primes the mind to better see meaning in life simply by observing what one already has (Liao & Weng, 2018). 

• Gratitude strengthens supportive relationships and fosters a deeper sense of interconnectedness. Expressing genuine gratitude can benefit both the giver and the receiver and help each feel more satisfied with the relationship (Leong et al., 2020). Feeling and expressing gratitude for valued relationships can create an "upward spiral" in which a person is likely to treat friends and family members with greater kindness, eliciting further support from them in a kind of positive feedback loop (Liao & Weng, 2018). In addition, grateful people tend to bring out positive reactions from others and are more likely to attract new friends. 

• Gratitude has important physiological benefits, such as better sleep, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, and less stress (Newman et al., 2021). 

• A grateful attitude combats envy and unhelpful comparisons with others. Regularly acknowledging your fortunate circumstances leaves less room for wanting what others have (Lyubomirsky, 2013). 

• Practicing gratitude also appears to diminish unhealthy expressions of feelings like anger, jealousy, and bitterness. Having a grateful attitude can also increase our emotional regulation, helping us deal with those negative emotions when they arise and giving us the resources to effectively handle them (Boggio et al., 2020). Gratitude has also been shown to be a factor in reducing burnout (Kersten et al., 2021). By expanding our perspective in emotional situations, gratitude seems to give us more space to choose how we want to respond. 

• Importantly, gratitude helps thwart hedonic adaptation--the tendency for us to adapt fairly quickly to a positive new event or circumstance in our lives. Humans are wired to adapt to change, whether positive or negative. However, a characteristic of human flourishing is learning to not take positive circumstances for granted. Practicing gratitude can directly counteract hedonic adaptation, allowing us to bask in the extended glow of any and all gifts in life that we choose to recognize (Lyubomirsky, 2013).