Gratitude Science: Study of What Goes Right in Life
In a previous blog, I shared how finding at least one thing to be grateful for helped me manage the anxiety associated with a tough bout of Covid. After stressful, anxious nights of fever-induced dreams, I would wake each morning with one thought, “What am I grateful for this morning?”. By turning my attention to something positive each morning, I was able to start the day with a new resolve to get better. I knew this practice worked for me, but what I didn’t know was that researchers around the world were also exploring how gratitude could help us cope with the pandemic in many ways.
Here are the highlights of some of the research:
Microsoft developed an anonymous nightly diary study with 435 employees to learn about their experiences over the first 10 weeks of their work from home directive. Results showed that the greatest challenges were too many meetings, feeling overworked, and their physical and mental health. However, many employees also reported gratitude for family, increased flexibility, being employees, and team support. People who did not express gratitude were 22% less likely to report being satisfied that day. Many people also reported that the simply reflecting nightly during the study was helpful (Butler & Jaffe, 2021).
A U. S. nationally-representative sample during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic found that those who reported higher levels of gratitude accomplished more in daily life, reported higher levels of meaning in life, thrived more, and showed less psychological distress (Feng & Yin, 2021).
A sample of 253 participants in Portugal and 280 in Brazil were randomly assigned to one of two groups. They were asked to write about recent experiences of gratitude or were assigned to a control group where they were asked to write about daily tasks. The results of this study showed that engaging in written exercises about recent experiences of gratitude can create a more positive outlook on life (Oliveira et al., 2021).
Researchers sought to determine whether daily feelings of gratitude are a buffer against the negative consequences of COVID-19 and if there are differences by age group. This study involved asking participants to complete an online daily questionnaire which included questions about their daily subjective health, their feelings, and daily stress related to COVID-19. The findings showed that feeling more gratitude than usual was associated with more positive emotions and better subjective health. Feeling more gratitude was also associated with less stress related to the pandemic. The researchers also found no difference by age group (Jiang et al., 2020).
Two hundred fifty-four health care workers during the pandemic were asked three open-ended questions (Kelker et al., 2021): 1) What brings you joy in your work?, 2) Thinking back to what matters most, what are you grateful for?, and 3) What do you do to maintain your personal wellness? Common themes for joy were patient care (47%), teamwork/camaraderie (43%), feeling valued/appreciated (13%), making a difference (13%), and teaching/mentoring (9%). Common themes related to gratitude were teamwork/camaraderie (13%), family (12%), health (7%), and supportive work environment (7%). Themes of personal wellness were physical exercise (46%), time with family and friends (32%), hobbies (15%), and self-care (13%).
A survey of 511 participants from March to May, 2020 was conducted to examine the frequency of grateful feelings. This is the first study to investigate how grateful people expect to feel in the future. They also explored whether gratitude was related to perceived positive changes in themselves during the pandemic. Over 56% reported being very grateful. Participants also expected to be even more grateful in the future (69%). Gratitude strongly predicted happiness during the pandemic and predicted variables critical to well-being. The researcher concluded that gratitude amplifies an individual’s perspective on the world and can open the door to other positive life changes even in times of crisis (Waters et al., 2021).
A meta-analysis conducted involving 26,427 children, adolescents, and adults found that people who experience more gratitude in their lives have lower levels of depression. Furthermore, the results did not vary across age of participants or gender (Iodice et al., 2021).
Based on a review of the research during the pandemic, it seems that the practice of gratitude offers a simple and effective way to not just manage today’s challenges, but is a beneficial practice for a lifetime.
References
Butler, J., & Jaffe, S. (2021, May). Challenges and gratitude: A diary study of software engineers working from home during covid-19 pandemic. In 2021 IEEE/ACM 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice (ICSE-SEIP) (pp. 362-363). IEEE.
Feng, L., & Yin, R. (2021). Social support and hope mediate the relationship between gratitude and depression among front-line medical staff during the pandemic of COVID-19. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 579.
Iodice, J., Malouff, J., & Schutte, N. (2020). The Association Between Gratitude and Depression: A Meta-Analysis.
Jiang, D. (2020). Feeling gratitude is associated with better well-being across the life span: a daily diary study during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B.
Kelker, H., Cushman, E., Munson, C., Yoder, K., Musey, P., Reed, K., ... & Welch, J. (2021). 99 Identifying Factors that Contribute to Joy and Gratitude for Emergency Medicine Health Care Providers Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 78(2), S46
Oliveira, R., Baldé, A., Madeira, M., Ribeiro, T., & Arriaga, P. (2021). The impact of writing about gratitude on the intention to engage in prosocial behaviors during the COVID-19 outbreak. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 293.
Watkins, P. C., Emmons, R. A., Amador, T., & Fredrick, M. (2021). Growth of gratitude in times of trouble: Gratitude in the pandemic. Paper submitted for the virtual International Positive Psychology Association meeting, July 15–17, 2021.