Does Gratitude Enhance Social Well-Being?

Abstract

In this chapter I explore how gratitude promotes well-being by enhancing social well-being. Research has clearly demonstrated that one of the most reliable characteristics of happy people is that they are social people. Thus, gratitude may enhance well-being by promoting healthy relationships. Gratitude may be seen to be a moral affect, in that it serves as a moral barometer, a moral motivator, and a moral reinforcer. How does gratitude promote social well-being? First, research has shown that grateful people are well liked. Second, evidence indicates that gratitude helps form and bond relationships. Furthermore, new research shows that gratitude is important in the maintenance of ongoing relationships. Finally, gratitude supports social well-being because it is a definitively prosocial emotion. Research has shown that when people feel grateful, they are more likely to help others, even when their assistance is costly. Expressions of gratitude also promote prosocial behavior in others, thereby showing that gratitude is a strong moral reinforcer. I conclude the chapter by summarizing the evidence with S. Algoe’s (Soc Pers Psychol Compass 6:455–469, 2012) find-remind-and-bind theory of the social functions of gratitude.

In our age man has been broken up into self-contained individuals…isolating himself from people and people from him. And, while he accumulates material wealth in isolation, he thinks with satisfaction how mighty and secure he has become…. The reason for this is that he has become accustomed to relying on himself; he has split off from the whole and become an isolated unit; he has trained his soul not to rely on human help, not to believe in men and mankind, and only to worry that the wealth and privileges he has accumulated may get lost. Everywhere men today are turning scornfully away from the truth that the security of the individual cannot be achieved by his isolated efforts but only by mankind as a whole.

–F. Dostoevsky