Does Gratefulness Work?

Date

July 31, 2021

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Gratefulness has been proposed as a way to increase one’s happiness in life. But does it work? We look at the science of gratitude diaries to find out whether gratefulness has a positive effect on happiness.If you like reading about . . .

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This is a part of year-long series of articles, in which we examine six different philosophies of happiness and how they apply to today’s life. Find all the articles in this series here.

What does science have to say about gratefulness? Does practising gratefulness, as David Steindl-Rast says, really make us happier?

The biological basis of gratefulness

Once again, The Psychology of Gratitude (Emmons and McCullough, Oxford University Press, 2004) comes to our rescue. In their article “Gratitude in Modern Life,” Dan P. McAdams and Jack J. Bauer discuss the argument that gratitude forms part of our evolutionary adaptation to a social life and to moral behaviour in general:

De Waal has argued that human beings have evolved to exhibit such sympathy-related traits as attachment and cognitive empathy, to establish and respect prescriptive social rules, to reciprocate in kind (be it an act of kindness or revenge), and to engage in behaviors and to formulate mental strategies that promote getting along with each other. (p.86)

There is some evidence that we might have special neural circuits in our brains, the so-called “mirror neurons,” that form the basis of empathy: our ability to put ourselves “into the shoes” of someone whom we observe, to “feel” how the person opposite us must feel, although the details of how this might work are disputed. Regardless of the neuroscience of empathy, it is clear that most of us do have this ability to feel how other people feel to varying degrees. And the total absence of empathy is a pathological state sometimes found in psychopathic criminals.

As important as empathy and rule-following are, we know from the Prisoner’s Dilemma that successful social interaction also must involve retaliation. In 1984, Robert Axelrod in “The Evolution of Cooperation,” showed that the most successful cooperation of two parties involves initial trust, followed by the revenge if the other party betrays that trust (which has become known as “tit-for-tat” strategy).

In this context, it is reasonable to suggest that showing gratitude and expecting it from others might qualify as an evolved behavioral adaptation, rooted in reciprocity and designed to facilitate getting along. … Gratitude may be grouped, therefore, in the same family as kin selection and reciprocal altruism—evolved adaptations that have proven so useful for fitness in group living that they have become, more or less, foundational features of human nature. (The Psychology of Gratitude, p.86)