On Gratitude
Lili Powell holds a joint appointment as the Julie Logan Sands Associate Professor, Darden School of Business, and Associate Professor, School of Nursing. She is also the Director of the School of Nursing’s Compassionate Care Initiative (CCI), which promotes wellbeing, collaboration, leadership, healthy work and learning environments, and compassionate care. Her teaching and writing explore the intersection of mindfulness, communication, and leadership. Through Darden’s Executive Education and Lifelong Learning, she teaches “Leading Mindfully.”
Soon, the University of Virginia will pause for the Thanksgiving break. Some students will travel home, while others will stay closer to school to feast together. Staff and faculty will enjoy time with their families and friends. It’s a time for being good neighbors, coming together in fellowship, and treating each other as kinfolk. It is a time for intentionally giving and giving thanks.
What is gratitude, and why is it significant?
In a world sometimes filled with storms – doubt, anger, division – gratitude breaks through the clouds. Whether practiced intentionally, spontaneously, or even defiantly, gratitude invigorates and restores us. It can invite forgiveness, helping us to overcome petty differences and appreciate another’s gifts. It reminds us of our hope, humanity, and connection. It also inspires us—if not demands of us—to share this feeling with others.
So, in this season, let’s also pause to consider gratitude itself—as a virtue, a social grace, and a practice.
Gratitude as a Virtue
Of gratitude, the Roman orator Cicero observed, “For this virtue alone is not just the highest but is indeed the mother of every other virtue.”[1] In Cicero’s view, gratitude is not a mere stepping stone to personal happiness, as is sometimes implied in modern times.[2] Instead, Cicero details virtues that arise out of and extend gratitude. For example, gratitude leads to showing affection for one’s parents, voicing reverence, appreciating friends, and acting out of kindness. In other words, gratitude is not just a self-serving, happy feeling. Rather, gratitude as a virtue inspires us to say and do good things with others.[3] In this way, gratitude gives birth to our most thoughtful selves and actions.
Gratitude as a Social Grace
Gratitude is also a social grace that must be spoken. Think of how foundational gratitude is to human and language development. As a child, when someone gave you something, how many among us had a parent who prompted us with “What do you say?” Language scholars will explain that gratitude is a powerful speech act that must be expressed to be completed.[4] As William Arthur Ward said, “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”[5]
But why do we go through this social ritual? Evolutionary psychologists explain that expressing gratitude encourages prosocial behaviors that strengthen bonds among human beings.[6] Thus, gratitude is not merely a social grace but also a key to human survival.
Research on the benefits of gratitude abounds in psychology, sociology, communication, nursing, and medicine. For senders and receivers alike, gratitude has been shown to increase empathy, connection, and trust, resulting in improved mental and even physical health.[7] What’s more, gratitude transcends interpersonal interactions. New organizational research shows that the benefits of gratitude extend beyond sender and receiver. My Darden colleague Ayana Younge and her team of researchers have demonstrated the effects of witnessing gratitude. Specifically, how witnessing gratitude being expressed between two other people sets off a positive social contagion. The witness not only wants to affiliate with the grateful pair but also feels more socially connected and is more likely to express gratitude to someone else.[8] This has powerful consequences in my field, leadership communication, because it demonstrates that when you notice out loud and express appreciation to others, it is a gift that keeps giving.
Gratitude as a Practice
Lastly, gratitude is a practice. While gratitude is a trait for some of us – something we naturally feel and express easily – others of us can benefit from learning to intentionally practice gratitude.
The first step involves paying attention, but in a certain way. So often, our nervous systems are wired with a negativity bias, meaning that we are hard-wired to sense threats and find problems to react to. But gratitude practice requires something different from us. Instead, we intentionally look for things that are going right. We catch people in the act of doing something good. As Margaret Visser, the Canadian author, writes, “Gratitude is always a matter of paying attention . . . deliberately beholding and appreciating each other.”[9] And then, of course, giving voice to what you have perceived.
In formal terms, you can practice gratitude on your own through meditation, such as a lovingkindness practice.[10] You can practice embodying gratitude by simply feeling the warmth of your hand at your heart. Gratitude journaling, such as writing down three good things at the end of the day, has been found to reduce stress and increase well-being, even more so than other forms of creative writing.[11]
Gratitude is best when shared in conversation. According to the story of the Life is Good brand, the two brothers who founded the company learned the habit of gratitude from their mother at the dinner table when she always said, “Tell me something good about your day.”[12]
I’ll end by telling you something good about my day. The University of Virginia is constituted by a diverse community of students, alumni, patients, families, and communities who are served daily by dedicated staff, faculty, and health workers. Together we aspire to embody all that is great and good.
We all need rituals of gratitude. If by now you don’t feel a little more virtuous, connected, and fulfilled, let me simply close by saying, “Thank you.”
References:
[1] “Haec enim est una virtus non solum maxima sed etiam mater virtutum omnium.” Cicero, Pro Plancio, section 80. https://www.attalus.org/cicero/plancius2.html
[2] Robert Emmons, “Is Gratitude Queen of the Virtues?” Big Questions Online [website], September 12, 2012. https://bigquestionsonline.com/2012/09/18/gratitude-queen-virtues/
[3] Leah Goldrick, “5 Signs You Lack Gratitude According to Cicero,” Common Sense Ethics [blog], January 19, 2017. https://www.commonsenseethics.com/blog/5-signs-you-lack-gratitude-according-to-cicero
[4] Miriam Eisenstein and Jean Bodman, “Expressing Gratitude in American English,” Interlanguage Pragmatics, Gabrielle Kasper and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, eds. (Cary: Oxford University Press, 1993), 64-81.
[5] Attributed to “William Arthur Ward (1921-1994) American aphorist, author, educator.” WIST (Wish I’d Said That) [website]. https://wist.info/ward-william-arthur/38296/
[6] Malini Suchak, “The Evolution of Gratitude,” Greater Good Magazine, February 1, 2017. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_evolution_of_gratitude
[7] Joshua Brown and Joel Wong, “How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain,” Greater Good Magazine, June 6, 2017. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_changes_you_and_your_brain
[8] Sara Algoe, Patrick Dwyer, Ayana Younge, and Christopher Oveis, “A New Perspective on the Social Functions of Emotions: Gratitude and the Witnessing Effect,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 119, Issue 1, pp. 40-74. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/pspi0000202
[9] Quoted in Dwight Garner, “Gratitude’s Grace Can Be Itself a Gift,” The New York Times, November 17, 2009. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/books/18book.html
[10] “Loving-Kindness Meditation with Sharon Salzberg,” Mindful [website]. https://www.mindful.org/loving-kindness-meditation-with-sharon-salzberg/
[11] “Reflect on Three Good Things,” Duke Health and Well-being [blog], October 11, 2021. https://dhwblog.dukehealth.org/reflect-on-three-good-things/
[12] “Brothers who cofounded a $100 million company say a question their mom asked every night at dinner inspired their business,” Business Insider, February 22, 2019. https://www.businessinsider.com/life-is-good-founders-say-this-question-inspired-their-business-2015-12