Gratitude: What is it?

There’s the part of gratitude that we readily think of as being a polite social convention (e.g., expressing thanks to someone who has done something nice for us), but it’s much more than just a habit of saying “thank you.” Beyond the practical interpersonal applications, gratitude includes much broader transcendent aspects. We could describe gratitude as a habit of awareness and a pattern of thinking that recognizes and appreciates the fortunate aspects of our circumstances. In this way, gratitude really is an orientation to life, a perspective that is both humbling and energizing, in which we recognize that we occupy a highly unique and favored position that we did not "earn" ourselves. Even this day of life, this very moment, can be considered a gift deserving of appreciation. As we will examine in more detail, we can choose to cultivate this healthy perspective by practicing certain patterns of thought and action.

Gratitude has been described in research as a positive emotion, an attitude, a moral virtue, psychological state, personality trait, character strength or coping response (Skrzelinska & Ferreira, 2020). Simply stated, gratitude is a felt sense of wonder, thankfulness, and appreciation for life (Emmons & Shelton, 2002). Importantly, this sense of wonder and appreciation prompts us to act in prosocial ways that benefit ourselves as well as others (e.g., savoring fortunate circumstances, reciprocating others’ acts of kindness toward us, “paying it forward”). Gratitude is a social emotion that helps bond us to others and strengthen our social relationships through increasing interpersonal helping behaviors (Newman et al., 2021; Kersten, 2021). Consequently, as noted by gratitude researcher Robert Emmons: “Gratitude is important not only because it helps us feel good but also because it inspires us to do good” (Emmons, 2013, p. vii).       

In the positive psychology literature, gratitude has been described as a kind of “meta-strategy” in that it promotes well-being in and of itself, and also overlaps with and complements a number of other well-being strategies and characteristics of human flourishing. For example, gratitude is closely related to mindfulness, optimism, savoring, and interconnectedness; topics we also cover in detail in our framework of human flourishing. As such, a serious commitment to living gratefully may include studying and cultivating these other qualities as well.