"SARAH SCHNITKER: So gratitude is an incredibly potent virtue. What gratitude does is tells us we are valued in relationship. And we see that when people feel genuine gratitude, they indeed help others. And it binds us to each other. But when we practice gratitude, the devil might be in the details. It's not just what are you grateful for? It's to whom are you grateful?"
"Our research team was interested in whether gratitude, expressed in the form of prayer to a deity, would differ from gratitude practiced kind of as a self-help exercise, or expressing that gratitude to another person. And so we randomly assigned participants to one of these three conditions. And what we found is that when people prayed, we see more health and well-being benefits than the journaling the gratitude, or journaling and reading it aloud to a person."
Gratitude signals being valued in relationship and motivates helping behavior, thereby binding people together. The target of gratitude matters: gratitude directed toward a transcendent entity such as a deity or the natural world differs from gratitude practiced as a self-help exercise or expressed to another person. Participants were randomly assigned to pray, to journal grateful thoughts, or to journal and read them aloud; prayer produced greater health and well-being benefits than journaling or journaling plus reading aloud. Imbuing goals and relationships with sacred meaning increases investment and benefits. Feeling connected to something larger helps counteract loneliness.
Read at Big Think
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