Gratitude

Gratitude is a common interpersonal emotion. Feeling grateful was the third most common discrete positive affect experienced in a sample of older adults, reported by nearly 90 percent of those surveyed. Gratitude can also represent a broader attitude toward life—the tendency to see all of life as a gift. Gratitude thus has various meanings and can be conceptualized at several levels of analysis ranging from momentary affect to long-term dispositions. It has been conceptualized as an [Page 774]emotion, an attitude, a moral virtue, a habit, a personality trait, and a coping response. The word gratitude itself is derived from the Latin gratia, meaning grace, graciousness, or gratefulness. All derivatives from this Latin root have to do with kindness, generousness, gifts, the beauty of giving and receiving, or getting something for nothing. This entry discusses why gratitude is important in human relationships and, more generally, in life itself.

Although a variety of life experiences can elicit feelings of gratitude, prototypically gratitude stems from the perception that one has received a gift or benefit from another person. Grateful emotions and behaviors typically result from the perception that another person has intended to promote one's well-being. Most existing theories concur that gratitude is mostly under a specific set of attributions: (a) when a benefit is evaluated positively, (b) when the benefit that one has encountered is not attributed to one's own effort, and (c) when the benefit was rendered intentionally by the benefactor. Existing research suggests that gratitude is a typically pleasant experience that is linked to contentment, happiness, and hope. There is consensus that gratitude can be regarded as a moral emotion in that it leads to behavior intended to benefit others. The experience of gratitude results from acknowledging the “gratuitous” role sources of social support may play in propagating beneficial outcomes in our lives. Gratitude aids in reciprocating kindness toward those who have been kind to us.

Gratitude serves important functions in human's social and emotional lives. Recent work has suggested that gratitude is a reliable emotional response to the receipt of benefits, and that the experience and expression of gratitude may have important effects on behavior in the moral domain. From the perspectives of moral philosophy and theology, gratitude is seen as a human strength that enhances one's personal and relational well-being and is beneficial for society as a whole. Gratitude is a moral affect—that is, one with moral precursors and consequences. By experiencing gratitude, a person is motivated to carry out prosocial behavior, energized to sustain moral behaviors, and inhibited from committing destructive interpersonal behaviors. Specifically, gratitude serves as a moral barometer, providing individuals with an affective readout that accompanies the perception that another person has treated them prosocially. Second, gratitude serves as a moral motive, stimulating people to behave prosocially after they have been the beneficiaries of other people's prosocial behavior. Third, gratitude serves as a moral rein-forcer, encouraging prosocial behavior by reinforcing people for their previous good deeds. Gratitude is also motivating. There is an energizing and motivating quality to gratitude. It is a positive state of mind that gives rise to the “passing on of the gift” through positive action. As such, gratitude serves as a key link in the exchange between receiving and giving. This is a response to kindnesses received, as well as a motivator of future benevolent actions by the recipient. In the language of evolutionary processes, gratitude leads to “upstream reciprocity.” As much of human life is about giving, receiving, and repaying, gratitude is a pivotal concept for human social interaction. Moreover, gratitude may spur spontaneous acts of altruism.

...