Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
2003, Vol. 84, No. 2, 377–389

Copyright 2003 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
0022-3514/03/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.84.2.377

Counting Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of
Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life
Robert A. Emmons

Michael E. McCullough

University of California, Davis

University of Miami

The effect of a grateful outlook on psychological and physical well-being was examined. In Studies 1
and 2, participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 experimental conditions (hassles, gratitude listing,and either neutral life events or social comparison); they then kept weekly (Study 1) or daily (Study 2)
records of their moods, coping behaviors, health behaviors, physical symptoms, and overall life appraisals. In a 3rd study, persons with neuromuscular disease were randomly assigned to either the gratitudecondition or to a control condition. The gratitude-outlook groups exhibited heightened well-being acrossseveral, though not all, of the outcome measures across the 3 studies, relative to the comparison groups.
The effect on positive affect appeared to be the most robust finding. Results suggest that a conscious
focus on blessings may have emotional and interpersonal benefits.

been treated as both basic and desirable aspects of human personality and social life. For example, gratitude is a highly prized
human disposition in Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, andHindu thought (Carman & Streng, 1989). Indeed, the consensus
among the world’s religious and ethical writers is that people aremorally obligated to feel and express gratitude in response toreceived benefits. Despite such widespread exhortations, the contribution of gratitude to health, well-being, and overall positive
functioning remains speculative and without rigorous empiricalconfirmation. Contemporary research on gratitude is still in a
fledgling state (Emmons & McCullough, in press; McCullough,Emmons, & Tsang, 2002). Our primary purpose in this set ofstudies is to examine the influence of grateful thinking on psychological well-being in daily life and thereby put to the test popularand classical assumptions concerning the benefits of gratitude.

Reflect on your present blessings, on which every man has many, noton your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
—Charles Dickens (M. Dickens, 1897, p. 45)

The construct of gratitude has inspired considerable interest in
the general public. The prevalence of books targeted to generalaudiences on the topic (Breathnach, 1996; Hay, 1996; Miller,
1995; Ryan, 1999; Steindl-Rast, 1984; Turner, 1998; Van Kaam &Muto, 1993) testify to this concept’s widespread appeal. Following
a similar format, these popular books generally consist of reflections on the value of gratefulness, along with strategies for cultivating an attitude of gratitude. The essential message of thesevolumes is that a life oriented around gratefulness is the panacea
for insatiable yearnings and life’s ills. Grateful responses to life,
we are told, can lead to peace of mind, happiness, physical health,and deeper, more satisfying personal relationships. Although intuitively compelling, many of the general claims in popular books
concerning the power of a grateful lifestyle are speculative and as
yet scientifically untested. In one popular book on gratitude, forinstance, the author asserts that “Whatever we are waiting for—peace of mind, contentment, grace . . . it will surely come to us, but
only when we are ready to receive it with an open and gratefulheart” (Breathnach, 1996).
Gratitude has also had a long past in the history of ideas. Acrosscultures and time, experiences and expressions of gratitude haveOn the Meaning of Gratitude
Gratitude defies easy classification. It has been conceptualized
as an emotion, an attitude, a moral virtue, a habit, a personality
trait, or a coping response. The word gratitude is derived from theLatin root gratia, meaning grace, graciousness, or gratefulness. All
derivatives from this Latin root “have to do with kindness, generousness, gifts, the beauty of giving and receiving, or getting
something for nothing” (Pruyser, 1976, p. 69). The object ofgratitude is other-directed—persons, as well as to impersonal(nature) or nonhuman sources (e.g., God, animals, the cosmos;
Solomon, 1977; Teigen, 1997). Although a variety of life experiences can elicit feelings of gratitude, prototypically gratitude stems
from the perception of a positive personal outcome, not necessarily
deserved or earned, that is due to the actions of another person.
Gratitude has been defined as “the willingness to recognize theunearned increments of value in one’s experience” (Bertocci &Millard, 1963, p. 389), and “an estimate of gain coupled with thejudgment that someone else is responsible for that gain” (Solomon,

Robert A. Emmons, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis; Michael E. McCullough, Department of Psychology, Universityof Miami.
This research was supported by a generous grant from The John
Templeton Foundation. We are grateful to Michelle Vu and Lisa Krause for
their assistance in data preparation and data entry, and to Jo-Ann Tsang forher helpful comments on a draft of this article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Robert
A. Emmons, Department of Psychology, University of California, One
Shields Avenue, Davis, California 95616. E-mail: raemmons@ucdavis.edu

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1977, p. 316). The benefit, gift, or personal gain might be material
or nonmaterial (e.g., emotional or spiritual).
As an emotion, gratitude is an attribution-dependent state(Weiner, 1985) that results from a two-step cognitive process: (a)recognizing that one has obtained a positive outcome, and (b)recognizing that there is an external source for this positive outcome. Lazarus and Lazarus (1994) argued that gratitude is one of
the “empathic emotions” whose roots lie in the capacity to empathize with others. The core relational theme associated with gratitude is recognition or appreciation of an altruistic gift. Gratitude
is a complex state that belongs to the category of affective–
cognitive conditions (Clore, Ortony, & Foss, 1987) in which both
affect and cognition are predominant-meaning components of theterm.

Gratitude, Happiness, and Well-Being:
Mechanisms of Association
There are reasons to believe that experiences of gratitude might
be associated—perhaps even in a causal fashion—with happiness
and well-being. Researchers, writers, and practitioners have all
speculated that gratitude possesses happiness-bestowing properties. Chesterton (1924) contended that “gratitude produced . . . themost purely joyful moments that have been known to man” (p.
114). Several theorists and researchers (e.g., Lazarus & Lazarus,
1994; Mayer, Salovey, Gomberg-Kaufman, & Blainey, 1991; Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1986; Weiner, 1985) have noted thatgratitude typically has a positive emotional valence.
Initial research suggests that gratitude is a moderately pleasantand activating emotion. Research has shown that gratitude is apleasant state and is linked with positive emotions including contentment (Walker & Pitts, 1998), happiness, pride, and hope(Overwalle, Mervielde, & De Schuyter, 1995). In research on thescaling of emotion terms, gratitude tends to load on pleasantness
and activation factors (Mayer et al., 1991; Reisenzein, 1994). In an
empirically derived taxonomy of emotion terms, gratitude wasclustered in a category of positive, interpersonal feelings that
included admiration, respect, trust and regard (Storm & Storm,1987). In similarity judgments of emotions, thankfulness is rated
as highly similar to joy and contentment, and as highly dissimilar
to contempt, hate, and jealousy (Schimmack & Reisenzein, 1997).
Gratitude was 1 of 50 emotion terms included in Davitz’s (1969)
study of the structure of emotional meaning. Forty subjects rated
the relevance of over 500 descriptive statements designed to capture various elements of emotional experiences. Twelve clusters ofemotion meaning were identified, on four of which gratitude
loaded highly: activation, comfort/harmony, moving toward others, and enhancement/expansion of self. In addition to its merit as
an intrinsically rewarding state, gratitude may lead to other positive subjective experiences. In a recent Gallup (1998) survey of
American teens and adults, over 90% of respondents indicated that
expressing gratitude helped them to feel “extremely happy” or“somewhat happy.” Lastly, McCullough et al. (2002) found that
dispositional gratitude was related to, but distinct from, trait measures of positive affect, vitality, optimism, envy, depression, andanxiety. Although gratitude overlaps with other positive feelings, italso possesses a unique pattern of appraisals that distinguishes itfrom happiness (Weiner, 1985).

Savoring the Positive Circumstances of Life
A grateful response to life circumstances may be an adaptive
psychological strategy and an important process by which people
positively interpret everyday experiences. The ability to notice,appreciate, and savor the elements of one’s life has been viewed asa crucial determinant of well-being (Bryant, 1989; Janoff-Bulman& Berger, 2000; Langston, 1994). Frijda (1988) stated that “adaptation to satisfaction can be counteracted by constantly being
aware of how fortunate one’s condition is and how it could havebeen otherwise, or actually was otherwise before . . . enduringhappiness seems possible, and it can be understood theoretically”(p. 354).
The personal commitment to invest psychic energy in developing a personal schema, outlook, or worldview of one’s life as a
“gift” or one’s very self as being “gifted” holds considerable swayfrom the standpoint of achieving optimal psychological functioning. Indeed, numerous groups have absorbed this insight. For
example, many religiously oriented events such as reflection daysor scheduled week-long retreats have as a recurring theme the ideaof a gift (e.g., those influenced by Jesuit spirituality) as do many
self-help groups and organizations (e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous).
The regular practice of grateful thinking, then, should lead toenhanced psychological and social functioning.

Gratitude and Well-Being: Correlation or Causality?
Foundationally, research on gratitude and well-being must address the issue of whether gratitude—whether in the context ofsavoring positive life circumstances, coping with negative life
circumstances, or trying to counteract negative emotions—is acause of well-being, per se, or merely a moderately positive andactive emotion that people with high well-being frequently experience. Of course, the most direct and unambiguous way to determine whether gratitude exerts a causal effect on happiness andwell-being would be in the context of experimental studies inwhich gratitude was manipulated and its effects on measures ofwell-being were observed.

Purpose of the Present Studies
In the spirit of understanding the link between gratitude andhappiness, the purpose of this research is to experimentally investigate the effects of a “grateful outlook” on psychological andphysical well-being. More specifically, we address whether relative to focusing on complaints or on neutral life events, a focus on“counting one’s blessings” leads to enhanced psychological andphysical functioning. Drawing together theoretical statements,
popular beliefs, and previous empirical findings, we predict that
self-guided exercises designed to induce a state of gratitude willlead to heightened well-being over time, relative to a focus on
hassles, downward social comparisons, or neutral life events. In
three studies, we randomly assigned participants to different experimental conditions and then had them keep daily or weekly
records of their positive and negative affect, coping behaviors,
health behaviors, physical symptoms, and overall life appraisals.
Because we are inducing people to dwell on the favorable, toappreciate the benefits that others provide, and hence reflect on the

GRATITUDE AND WELL-BEING

benevolence of others, we hypothesize that those in the gratitudefocused group would show enhanced psychosocial functioning
relative to persons in the hassles and life events groups (Study 1),
hassles and downward social comparison groups (Study 2), and toa true control group (Study 3). In the first two studies the participants are college students, whereas in Study 3 we recruited adults
with congenital and adult-onset neuromuscular diseases (NMDs)
to increase the potential generalizability of the results.
Although we believe we have sketched a compelling case for the
benefit conferring effect of gratitude, in our view this relationshipis neither inevitable nor unequivocal. Although gratitude as anemotion has been shown to covary with other positive affective
states (Mayer et al., 1991) and has generally been portrayed as a
virtue in the moral philosophy literature, attention has also beendrawn to its negative side. To be grateful means to allow oneself
to be placed in the position of a recipient—to feel indebted andaware of one’s dependence on others. Gratitude has an obligatory
aspect. People are expected to repay kindnesses. Most people
experience indebtedness as an unpleasant and aversive psychological state (Greenberg & Westcott, 1983). Thus, making people
aware of the things in their lives to be grateful for might increase
their recognition of the need to reciprocate, and people may resent
these obligations and even report strong negative feelings toward
their benefactors, even as extreme as hatred (Elster, 1999).
Another reason why our predictions are not obvious has to dowith the observation that people are characterized by baseline
levels of happiness. Set-point theory (Diener & Diener, 1996;
Lykken, 1999) maintains that people’s long-term levels of happiness are relatively stable and vary only slightly around geneticallyendowed levels. The degree to which well-being evaluations canbe altered through short-term psychological interventions and sustained over time remains to be seen. If there are chronic baseline
levels of affect, then raising the level of affect beyond a person’s
set point may be difficult. Thus, we believe this research represents
a particularly strong test of the happiness-inducing potential of
gratitude. If it is possible to demonstrate that there are significant
effects of a brief intervention to induce gratitude, then the potential
for a longer, more sustained effort would exist.

Study 1
MethodParticipants
The sample consisted of 201 undergraduate participants (147 women, 54men) enrolled in a health psychology class in a large, public university.
They participated to fulfill the experiential learning component of thecourse. Of these, 9 were dropped from data analysis because of missing or
incomplete data, leaving a total of 192 participants. Students were given an
alternative of roughly equal time commitment to not participating in the
research; only one opted for the alternative.

ProcedureAt the beginning of the academic quarter, participants were given apacket of 10 weekly reports. The packets were organized into threedifferent clusters, representing the three experimental conditions, and wererandomly distributed during the second class session. In the gratitudecondition, participants were provided with the following instructions:379

There are many things in our lives, both large and small, that we might
be grateful about. Think back over the past week and write down on
the lines below up to five things in your life that you are grateful or
thankful for.
Examples of gratitude-inducing experiences listed by participants were as
follows: “waking up this morning,” “the generosity of friends,” “to God forgiving me determination,” “for wonderful parents,” “to the Lord for justanother day,” and “to the Rolling Stones.” In the hassles condition, they
were told the following:
Hassles are irritants—things that annoy or bother you. They occur invarious domains of life, including relationships, work, school, housing, finances, health, and so forth. Think back over today and, on thelines below, list up to five hassles that occurred in your life.
Examples of hassles listed by participants were as follows: “hard to findparking,” “messy kitchen no one will clean,” “finances depleting quickly,”“having a horrible test in health psychology,” “stupid people driving,” and“doing a favor for friend who didn’t appreciate it.” In the events condition,
they were asked the following:
What were some of the events or circumstances that affected you in
the past week? Think back over the past week and write down on thelines below the five events that had an impact on you.
Examples of events generated by participants were “talked to a doctor
about medical school,” “learned CPR,” “cleaned out my shoe closet,” “flewback to Sacramento,” and “attended Whole Earth Festival.” Subsequent
coding of these events as positive, negative, or neutral revealed that 40%
were rated as pleasant, 30% as unpleasant, and 30% as neutral. Given thisbalance, it would appear that we were successful in creating a reasonably
neutral control condition. There were a total of 65 participants in thegratitude condition, 64 in the hassles group, and 67 in the events condition.
These separate instructions were written on the weekly report, followedby five blank lines for participants to list blessings, hassles, or life events.
To reduce potential experimental demand, the listing of gratitudes, hassles,
or life events was made at the end of each weekly report following theother ratings. Reports were handed in at Monday’s class to ensure compliance. If participants were unable to turn in the form Monday morning,they were instructed to turn them in as soon thereafter as possible. After theforms were passed out, each set of ratings were described to participants
and any questions they had concerning the procedure were answered.

Well-Being Ratings
In addition to the listing of blessings, hassles, or life events, the weekly
form included ratings of mood, physical symptoms, reactions to social
support received, estimated amount of time spent exercising, and two
global life appraisal questions. The 30 affect terms were as follows:interested, distressed, excited, alert, irritable, sad, stressed, ashamed,
happy, grateful, tired, upset, strong, nervous, guilty, joyful, determined,
thankful, calm, attentive, forgiving, hostile, energetic, hopeful, enthusiastic, active, afraid, proud, appreciative, and angry. Items were chosen on
the basis of being commonly occurring affective states (Watson, Clark, &Tellegen, 1988) as well as specific gratitude-related (thankful, appreciative) feelings. Participants were asked to rate the extent to which they haveexperienced each feeling during the past week on a scale from 1 (not at all)to 5 (extremely).
Physical symptoms. We assessed physical symptoms by having participants check off whether they had experienced any of the following
sensations: headaches, faintness/dizziness, stomachache/pain, shortness ofbreath, chest pain, acne/skin irritation, runny/congested nose, stiff or soremuscles, stomach upset/nausea, irritable bowels, hot or cold spells, poor

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appetite, coughing/sore throat, or other. Space was also provided forparticipants to write in any unlisted symptoms they may have experienced.
A symptom measure was created by summing the 13 items within eachweekly report. We have used this measure in previous research and it is areliable and valid index of self-perceived health status (Elliot & Sheldon,
1998; Emmons, 1992; Pennebaker, 1982).
Reactions to aid. As one additional way to measure grateful emotions
in daily life, we assessed various reactions to help-giving. This seemed
particularly appropriate given that the protypical situation in which gratitude is felt is in response to benefits provided. On the weekly form,
participants were asked to indicate how they had coped with the mostserious problem with which they were concerned during the week. Amongthe coping options listed, the most relevant ones pertinent to this study
were as follows: accepted sympathy from someone, talked to someone
about how they were feeling, or received concrete help or advice fromsomeone. If they answered “yes” to any of these, they were then asked torate how they felt toward the person who provided the assistance using thefollowing adjectives: grateful, annoyed, embarrassed, understood, surprised, glad, frustrated, and appreciative. These ratings were made on a
5-point scale ranging from 1 ! very slightly or not at all to 5 ! extremely.
We subsequently summed grateful, appreciative, understood, and glad into
a composite (! ! .92).
Global appraisals. We included two questions on the weekly form toassess both concurrent and prospective overall well-being. Participants
were asked to rate how they felt about their life as a whole during the week,
on a –3 to "3 scale, anchored with the adjectives terrible and delighted(modeled after Andrews & Withey, 1976). A second question asked
participants to rate their expectations for the upcoming week, also on a –3
to "3 scale, with the endpoints labeled pessimistic, expect the worst andoptimistic, expect the best.

Results
Data Reduction
For each of the 9 weeks during which follow-up surveys werecollected, we aggregated people’s scores on the three adjectives
related to gratitude (grateful, thankful, and appreciative) to derivea single measure of mean weekly gratitude. These three adjectives
were highly correlated, with internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) estimates ranging from .86 to .92. These three-item
composites were aggregated to form a single 9-week composite
measure of gratitude. Similar 9-week composites were created foreach of the 27 discrete affects. We omitted the first weekly reportbecause the well-being items on the report were answered prior to
the gratitude listing.
We also calculated mean 9-week composites of positive andnegative affect by submitting the 9-week composites of the 27
discrete affects to a maximum-likelihood factor analysis withoblimin rotation (# ! 0).1 Five factors were extracted with eigenvalues greater than 1.0, but eigenvalues dropped precipitously
from the second to the third factor (from 7.4 to 1.3), so weconcluded that only two factors were necessary to describe theinterrelations among the 27 9-week composite affects. Therefore,
we reconducted the factor analysis, specifying that only two factors be extracted. These two factors accounted for 59% of thevariance in the 27 9-week composite affects. The first factor,
which accounted for 33% of the variance, was clearly a measure of
positive affect, with all positive affects loading greater than .50 on
this factor and no loadings greater than .30 with any of the negative

affects. The second factor, which accounted for 26% of the variance, was clearly a measure of negative affect, with all of thenegative affects loading greater than .60 on this factor and noloadings greater than .30 with any of the positive affects. Despite
our use of an oblique rotation method, the positive affect andnegative affect factor scores were virtually orthogonal, r(N !
192) ! $.04, p % .05.

Manipulation Check
We conducted a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), with
the 9-week mean gratitude rating as the dependent variable and thethree experimental conditions (gratitude, hassles, events) as thethree levels of the independent variable to determine whether thethree conditions elicited differential amounts of gratitude acrossthe 9-week follow-up period. The means and standard deviationsof the 9-week composite gratitude and the 9-week composite
positive and negative affect factors appear in Table 1. The main
effect for condition was significant, F(2, 189) ! 4.69, p ! .01. A
post hoc Scheffé’s test revealed that the gratitude condition elicited
more gratitude (M ! 10.16, SD ! 1.93) than did the hassles
condition (M ! 9.08, SD ! 1.95), p & .05. Neither the gratitude
nor the hassles conditions elicited significantly different amountsof gratitude than did the events condition (M ! 9.58, SD ! 2.15),
ps % .05. Effect sizes (Cohen’s d) were 0.56 for the mean difference between the gratitude and hassles conditions, 0.28 for themean difference between the gratitude and neutral events conditions, and 0.24 for the mean difference between the neutral eventsand hassles conditions. Thus, relative to the neutral events condition, the gratitude and hassles conditions had nearly equal andopposite effects (i.e., SD ! .24 and $.28, respectively) on dailylevels of gratitude. However, participants in the gratitude condition
did not differ significantly from participants in the hassles or
events condition on either the positive or negative affect factors.

Global Appraisals and Health Measures
The mean ratings for the two global well-being items, amount of
exercise, and physical symptoms are shown in Table 2. There wasa significant main effect for the ratings of one’s life as a whole andexpectations concerning the upcoming week: Participants in thegratitude group rated their life more favorably on these two items
than did participants in the hassles group or events group (groupmeans and Fs can be found in Table 2). The gratitude-group
participants experienced fewer symptoms of physical illness thanthose in either of the other two groups. Lastly, there was a main
effect for hours of exercise: People in the gratitude condition spentsignificantly more time exercising (nearly 1.5 hr more per week)
than those in the hassles condition.

1

These results were nearly identical to the results obtained when using
principal components, although the maximum likelihood method is typically preferred for such uses.

GRATITUDE AND WELL-BEING

381

Table 2Comparisons of Groups by Measures of Well-Being, Study 1

Reactions to Aid
Grateful emotions in response to aid giving were significantly
associated with higher ratings of joy and happiness2 aggregatedover the 9-week period (rs ! .41 and .42, respectively, p & .01).
These correlations were computed across all three conditions. The
gratitude variable was also associated with more favorable life
appraisals (r ! .22, p & .01) and with more optimism concerning
the upcoming week (r ! .24, p & .01). In contrast, feelingannoyed, embarrassed, surprised, or frustrated in response to aidbore no relationship with these outcome measures. These data
indicate that grateful responses to help-giving are associated withmore favorable overall evaluations of well-being.

Discussion

Condition
Dependent variable

Grateful

Hassles

EventsF(2, 189)

Life as whole
Upcoming week
Physical symptoms
Hours of exercise

5.05a
5.48a
3.03a
4.35a

4.67b
5.11b
3.54b
3.01b

4.66b
5.10b
3.75b
3.74a

4.08*
2.81*
3.06*
3.76**

Note. N ! 192. Means that do not share a letter are significantly different,
p & .05.
* p & .05. ** p ! .01.

Procedure

There appeared to be some positive benefits for well-being
specific to the gratitude condition in Study 1. Relative to thehassles and life events groups, participants in the gratitude condition felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more
optimistic regarding their expectations for the upcoming week.
They reported fewer physical complaints and reported spending
significantly more time exercising. Yet the gratitude condition did
not appear to influence global positive or negative affect. Study 1
was limited in that participants were asked to complete only one
report per week. The effects on emotional well-being might bemore pronounced with a more intensive intervention. To introduce
a stronger manipulation, we designed a second study. This second
study was similar in most respects to Study 1 except that (a) diaries
were kept on a daily basis over a 2-week period, (b) we replaced
the life events group with a downward social comparison focusedgroup, and (c) we included a wider range of well-being outcomesthan in Study 1.

Participants were provided with a packet of 16 “daily experience rating
forms.” The first 2 days were considered practice days and were notcounted in the observation period. As in Study 1, we eliminated fromanalyses the first report from the observation period, resulting in a totalof 13 daily reports that were used in the analyses to be reported. The affectrating portion of the daily mood and health report was nearly identical to
the weekly report used in Study 1, except that the wording was changed toreflect the different time frame (“please rate the extent to which you felt thefollowing reactions during the day today”) and minor changes were madein some of the emotion terms on the form. Participants were instructed that
their ratings should reflect their appraisal of the day as a whole. They wereasked to complete the form in the evening before going to sleep and to turnin the form at the next class period. Compliance with the procedure washigh; no participants had to be eliminated for noncompliance.

Conditions
Instructions for the gratitude and hassles conditions were identical tothose used in Study 1. The third condition was a downward social comparison condition. Participants were told the following:

Study 2

It is human nature to compare ourselves to others. We may be betteroff than others in some ways, and less fortunate than other people inother ways. Think about ways in which you are better off than others,
things that you have that they don’t, and write these down in thespaces below.

MethodParticipants
The original sample consisted of 166 undergraduate participants (125women, 41 men) enrolled in a health psychology class in a large, public
university. They participated to fulfill the experiential learning componentof the course. Nine of the subjects were eventually eliminated for failing toprovide complete data, leaving a total of 157.

Table 1
Effects of Experimental Condition on 9-Week Mean Affects,
Study 1
Dependent variable

Gratitude

Hassles

EventsF(2, 193)

Gratitude composite
Positive affect factor
Negative affect factor

10.16a
0.18
0.07

9.08b
$0.13
$0.14

9.58ab
$0.03
0.07

4.69*
1.73
1.16

Note. Means that do not share a letter are significantly different, p & .05.
* p & .05.

We included this condition to have a condition that appeared to be positiveon the surface (to attempt to control for demand characteristics) but inreality might lead to different outcomes than the gratitude focus. Smith’s(2000) review of the emotional effects of social comparison indicates thatpride and schadenfreude (pleasure at the misfortune of others) are two
common reactions to a downward social comparison. There were 52
participants in the gratitude condition, 49 in the hassles condition, and 56
in the downward social comparison condition.

Health Behaviors
The daily form asked participants to record the number of minutes theyspent exercising strenuously, the number of minutes spent exercisingmoderately, the number of caffeine beverages consumed, the number of2

Rather than correlate the gratitude composite with each of the separate
affects, we chose the two clearest markers of pleasant affect, happiness and
joy.

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alcoholic beverages consumed, and the number of aspirins or pain relievers
taken. Because of the between-group exercise finding in Study 1, we
attempted to decompose the exercise variable into more specific types of
exercise. Strenuous exercise was defined as “hard exercise where you work
up a sweat and your heart beats fast” (e.g., aerobics, running, swimming
laps, dancing). Moderate exercise was defined as “exercise that is not
exhausting” (e.g., biking, easy swimming, using an exercise machine,
lifting weights). We also asked participants to record the number of hoursof sleep they received the previous night and to rate the quality of that sleep
on a scale from 1 (very sound or restful) to 5 (very restless).

Table 3
Effects of Experimental Condition on 13-Day Mean Affects,
Study 2
Dependent variable
Gratitude composite
Positive affect factor
Negative affect factor

Gratitude
a

9.78
0.24a
0.00

Hasslesb

8.03$0.26b0.00

Socialcomparisonab

8.93
0.00ab$0.06

F(2, 157)
8.40*
3.28*
ns

Note. Means that do not share a letter are significantly different, p & .05.
* p & .05.

Prosocial Behaviors
We asked participants to indicate, each day, if they had helped someone
with a problem or offered someone emotional support. These were answered in a simple “yes” or “no” to each.

Results
Data Reduction
Within each daily survey, we aggregated scores on the threeadjectives related to gratitude (grateful, thankful, and appreciative)
to derive a single measure of mean daily gratitude. These threeadjectives were highly correlated, with internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) estimates ranging from .84 to .90. These
daily mean gratitude ratings from Days 2–14 were aggregated toform a single composite across the 13 days.
As in Study 1, we also calculated mean 13-day positive andnegative affect scores by submitting the 27 other 13-day affectratings to a maximum-likelihood factor analysis with oblimin
rotation (# ! 0; see Footnote 1). As in Study 1, we specified that
only two factors be extracted. These two factors accounted for
58% of the variance in the 27 13-day mean affect ratings. The first
factor, which accounted for 37% of the variance, was clearly ameasure of positive affect, with all positive affects loading greaterthan .50 on this factor and no loadings greater than .30 with any of
the negative affects. The second factor, which accounted for 20%of the variance, was clearly a measure of negative affect, with allof the negative affects loading greater than .50 on this factor andno loadings greater than .30 with any of the positive affects.
Despite our use of an oblique rotation method, the positive affectand negative affect factor scores were virtually orthogonal, r(N !
157) ! $.01, p % .05.

Manipulation Check
We conducted a one-way ANOVA, with the 13-day mean
gratitude rating as the dependent variable and the three experimental conditions (gratitude, hassles, social comparison) as the threelevels of the independent variable to determine whether the three
conditions elicited differential amounts of gratitude across the
13-day follow-up period. The means and standard deviations of the
13-day mean gratitude and the 13-day mean positive and negative
affect factors appear in Table 3. The main effect for condition was
significant, F(2, 154) ! 8.40, p & .001. A post hoc Scheffé’s test
revealed that the gratitude condition elicited significantly moregratitude (M ! 9.78, SD ! 1.80) than did the hassles condition(M ! 8.03, SD ! 2.18), p & .05. Neither the gratitude nor thehassles conditions elicited significantly different amounts of grat-

itude than did the social comparison condition (M ! 8.93,
SD ! 2.41), ps % .05. Effect sizes (Cohen’s d) were 0.88 for themean difference between the gratitude and hassles conditions, 0.40
for the mean difference between the gratitude and social comparison conditions, and 0.39 for the mean difference between thesocial comparison and hassles conditions. Thus, relative to thesocial comparison condition, the gratitude and hassles conditions
had nearly equal and opposite effects (i.e., SD ! .40 and $.39,
respectively) on daily levels of gratitude. It is interesting to notethat the standard mean difference between the gratitude and hassles conditions was considerably larger in Study 2 (d ! .88) thanin Study 1 (d ! .56), suggesting that the daily tasks completed inStudy 2 were, on average, more potent in facilitating and inhibiting
gratitude than they were when completed on a more infrequent,
weekly basis.
The gratitude condition appeared to increase positive affectduring the 13-day period. People in the gratitude condition(M ! 0.24, SD ! 0.75) reported significantly ( p & .05) morepositive affect (attentive, determined, energetic, enthusiastic, excited, interested, joyful, strong) than did participants in the hassles
group (M ! $0.26, SD ! 0.94). The social comparison group(M ! 0.00, SD ! 1.16) was not significantly ( p % .05) different
from either the gratitude ( p ! .46) or hassles ( p ! .39) conditions.
In contrast, there was little strong indication that the interventions
had differential effects on negative affect during the 13-day period,
F(2, 154) ! 0.25, p ! .78.

Gratitude as a Mediator of the Interventions’ Effects on
Positive Affect
Our theorizing has led us to suggest that gratitude, per se, may
help to boost positive affect more generally, which is consistent
with the facts that (a) the gratitude intervention elicited moregratitude and more positive affect than did the hassles condition,and (b) gratitude and positive affect were correlated, r(N ! 157) !
.80, p & .001. However, these bivariate associations do not shedlight on the stronger hypothesis that the gratitude intervention’s
effects on gratitude were responsible for the effects of the intervention on positive affect more generally. Moreover, the bivariate
associations do not test the possibility that the effects of theintervention on gratitude were the by-product of the more generaleffects of the interventions on positive affect. To examine theselatter hypotheses explicitly requires mediational analyses (e.g.,
Baron & Kenny, 1986).

GRATITUDE AND WELL-BEING

According to Baron and Kenny (1986, p. 1177), mediation may
be present when the following three conditions are met: (a) anintervention has a significant effect on a presumed mediator (i.e.,
gratitude); (b) the intervention has a significant effect on thecriterion variable (i.e., positive affect); and (c) the presumed mediator (gratitude) and the criterion (positive affect) are significantly related when the effect of the intervention is controlled.
When the effect of the intervention on the criterion disappears
completely when the presumed mediator is controlled, one may
reasonably conclude that the presumed mediator completely mediates the effect of the intervention on the criterion.
Because the gratitude intervention appeared to create more
grateful emotion and more positive affect than did the hassles
condition (but not the downward social comparison condition), we
limited our mediational analyses only to participants who wereinvolved in the gratitude and hassles conditions. We converted thedifference in the effects of these two interventions on gratitude andpositive affect to correlation coefficients to enhance the interpretability of our mediational analysis.
The correlation of the intervention effect (i.e., gratitude vs.
hassles) with gratitude was r(N ! 101) ! $.41, p & .001, with thenegative sign indicating that the mean gratitude score was lower inthe hassles condition. The correlation of the intervention effect on
positive affect was r(N ! 101) ! $.28, p & .01. When positive
affect was regressed on the intervention effect and gratitude simultaneously, gratitude had a significant unique association withpositive affect (" ! .85, p & .001), but the intervention did not(" ! .06, p ! .31). Conversely, when gratitude was regressed on
the intervention effect and positive affect simultaneously, positive
affect had a significant unique association with gratitude (" ! .77,
p & .001), but the intervention effect did as well (" ! $.19, p !
.001).
The indirect (mediated) effect of the intervention on positive
affect can be computed as the product of the correlation coefficientindexing the intervention-gratitude relationship (r ! $.41) and theregression coefficient indexing the so-called effect of gratitude on
positive affect, controlling for the intervention effect (" ! .85).
The product of these two coefficients is $.35. The proportion of
the total intervention-positive affect association (i.e., r ! $.28)
that is accounted for by the mediating effects of gratitude cantherefore be computed as the indirect effect divided by the total
effect (i.e., $.35/$.28). Multiplying this quotient by 100% yields
a value exceeding 100%, so we can conceptualize gratitude as acomplete mediator of the intervention’s effect on positive affect.
Conversely, if we assume that the effects of the intervention on
gratitude were mediated by positive affect, we would calculate theindirect effect of the intervention on gratitude as [($.28)(.77)] !
$.22. The proportion of the total effect of the intervention on
gratitude (r ! $.41) that can be attributed to the indirect effects of
the intervention on positive affect, therefore, is $.22/$.41 ! 54%.
Thus, it appears that it is reasonable to conclude that gratitude
completely mediates the effects of the gratitude (vs. hassles) intervention on positive affect, but it does not appear that the effectsof the gratitude intervention on grateful emotion can be conceptualized strictly as the by-product of the intervention’s more general effects on positive affect.

383

Health Outcomes
In contrast to Study 1, there were no differences in reported
physical health complaints nor in time spent exercising, either
vigorously or moderately, between the three groups. There werealso no differences on the additional health behaviors that were
measured (sleep amount and quality, aspirin, caffeine, alcohol
usage).3

Prosocial Behaviors
There was an indication that the interventions had differential
effects on the two items that measured prosocial behavior. People
in the gratitude condition were more likely to report having offeredemotional support to others, F(2, 154) ! 2.98, p & .05, than thosein either the hassles group or the social comparison group. They
were also marginally more likely to have helped someone with aproblem, F(2, 154) ! 1.72, p ! .08, compared with people in thehassles condition. They did not differ from the social comparison
condition in frequency of helping others.

Discussion
Using a more intensive procedure for cultivating gratitude inthis second study enabled us to observe a number of beneficial
emotional effects of focusing on what one is grateful for. People in
the gratitude condition experienced higher levels of positive affectduring the 13-day period, and it appears plausible that this effecton positive affect generally was due to the intervention’s effect on
gratitude per se. They were also more likely to report having
helped someone with a personal problem or offered emotional
support to another, suggesting prosocial motivation as a consequence of the gratitude induction. Data were consistent with the
hypothesis that gratitude mediated the effects of the intervention
on positive affect. Unlike Study 1, however, the benefits did notextend to the somatic realm: No differences were observed inphysical symptomatology or health behaviors. We suspect that thismay have been due to the relatively short time frame of the study.
People are unlikely to alter their exercise habits in a 2-week period.
Because of the failure to replicate some of the effects from
Study 1 to Study 2, we conducted a third study. Study 3 had thefollowing three main purposes: (a) to extend the experimental
period from 2 weeks to 3 weeks to see if the benefits of a grateful
outlook could be observed over a longer period of time; (b) to
broaden our participant base beyond healthy college students byrecruiting an adult sample with chronic disease; and (c) to examine
whether the affective benefits observed in Study 2 could be replicated in another daily study and, importantly, if these effects areobservable within the context of the person’s closest relationship.
We thus expand our range of dependent variables to include
spouse-rated affect and satisfaction with life.

3
Descriptive statistics on these health variables are available from
Robert A. Emmons.

384

EMMONS AND MCCULLOUGH

Study 3
MethodParticipants
The original sample consisted of 65 people (44 women, 21 men) witheither congenital or adult-onset NMDs. Participants were recruited througha mailing list compiled by the University of California, Davis, Medical
Center Neuromuscular Disease Clinic. They ranged in age from 22 to 77
years, with a mean age of 49 years. The majority had one of three NMDs:
Post-polio, Charcot-Marie-Tooth, or Fascioscapulohumeral (see http://www.
rehabinfo.net for more information about NMD). Sixty-eight percent of theparticipants were married, 42% had college or postgraduate degrees, andtheir mean income was between $15,000 and $25,000. Little is known
about factors affecting the quality of life in persons with NMDs (Abresch,Seyden, & Wineinger, 1998), and thus the availability of this sample
provided us with a unique opportunity to determine if the gratitude intervention could be effective in improving well-being in this population.

Procedure
Participants were provided with a packet of 21 “daily experience rating
forms” that were very similar to those used in Study 2. They were also
provided with a set of instructions and business reply envelopes for mailingtheir forms directly back to the researchers. They were instructed to fill out
the form as close to the end of the day as possible, and were told that theirratings are meant to summarize the day as a whole. We encouraged themto try and complete it as late in the day as possible, but before being too
sleepy to complete it accurately. It was stressed that for most of them, theoptimal time will be in the early evening. The daily form took approximately 5 min to complete each evening. Participants were asked to mail in
their forms once a week. Finally, they were told that should they forget tofill out a form, that it is better to omit the form for that day rather thanfilling it out from memory. Participants were paid $20 if they completed allof the forms; $15 if they failed to complete all 21 forms. Virtually everyone
completed all 21 forms.

Conditions
Participants were assigned to one of two conditions: the gratitude condition used in Studies 1 and 2 or a control condition in which participants
completed the affect, well-being, and global appraisals only each day.
There were a total of 33 participants in the gratitude condition and 32 in thecontrol condition. Examples of gratitude inducing experiences were as
follows: “grateful to my boss for understanding my needs,” “to my gardener,” and “to my paperboy for being so reliable.”

Daily Experience Form
Daily affect. Each day, participants indicated the extent to which they
had experienced each of 32 discrete affects (including grateful, thankful,
and appreciative, as well as the specific affects used in Studies 1 and 2) on
a 5-point Likert-type scale (ranging from 1 ! very slightly or not at all to
5 ! extremely).
Subjective well-being. Participants completed the same two global life
appraisals (regarding life as a whole and optimism about the upcomingweek) that we used in Study 2. In addition, participants indicated how
connected they felt with others (where –3 ! isolated and "3 ! wellconnected). We included this item because an important issue for thequality of life in people with NMD is a sense of integration into theircommunity (Abresch et al., 1998).
Health behaviors. The daily form asked participants to record thenumber of hours of sleep they received the night before, whether they had

any difficulties falling asleep the night before (yes/no), and how refreshedthey woke up from sleep that morning (ranging from 1 ! not at all to 5 !
extremely). Participants also indicated how much physical pain they experienced each day (ranging from 1 ! none and 6 ! very severe) and how
pain interfered with what they wanted to accomplish each day (ranging
from 1 ! none and 5 ! extremely). Finally, participants indicated whether
they had exercised that day (yes/no). We included items on sleep durationand sleep quality because sleep predicts quality of life in older populations(Hoch et al., 2001).
Activities of daily living. Participants indicated (yes/no) whether they
had difficulties with any of six activities of daily living: (a) walking acrossa small room, (b) bathing or dressing; (c) eating; (d) lifting or carrying
objects; (e) climbing stairs; (f) using the toilet. These items were averaged
to create an overall measure of functional status. This six-item composite
had an internal consistency reliability of ! ! .79.
Observer reports of well-being. To augment the self-reports of thewell-being variables, we administered the Positive and Negative AffectScales and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, &Griffin, 1985) to the participant’s spouse or significant other. We asked
them to fill out the questionnaires according to how they think their spouseor significant other would respond. They were sent these questionnaires
immediately following the 21-day period, and were asked to complete themeasure in confidentiality. These questionnaires were mailed directly backto us, and we paid spouses or significant others $10 for completing themeasure. A total of 26 observer reports were obtained from each group.

Results
Data Reduction
Within each daily survey, we aggregated scores on the threeadjectives related to gratitude (grateful, thankful, and appreciative)
to derive a single measure of mean daily gratitude. These threeadjectives were highly correlated, with a mean internal consistency
reliability of ! ! .91. These daily mean gratitude ratings from
Days 1–21 were aggregated to form a single composite acrossthe 21 days. Other daily measures were aggregated into meanscores over the 21-day period.

Manipulation Check
We conducted a one-way ANOVA, with the 21-day mean
gratitude rating as the dependent variable and the two experimental
conditions (gratitude, control) as the two levels of the independent
variable to determine whether the conditions elicited differential
amounts of gratitude across the 21-day follow-up period. The main
effect for condition was significant, F(1, 63) ! 9.80, p & .01. As
seen in Table 4, the gratitude condition elicited more gratitude

Table 4Means, Standard Deviations, and Effects of Experimental
Condition on 21-Day Mean Affects, Study 3
Dependent variable

Gratitude

ControlF(1, 63)

Gratitude composite
Positive affect factor score
Negative affect factor score

10.87
0.35
$0.26

8.91
$0.25
0.26

9.80**
5.18*
4.37*

Note. N ! 65.
* p & .05. ** p & .01.

GRATITUDE AND WELL-BEING(M ! 10.87, SD ! 2.47) than did the control condition (M ! 8.91,
SD ! 2.55), d ! .78.

Group Differences on Positive and Negative AffectAs in Studies 1 and 2, we calculated mean 21-day positive andnegative affect scores by submitting the 29 other 21-day discrete
affect ratings to a maximum-likelihood factor analysis with oblimin rotation (# ! 0). For this factor analysis, to increase ourcases-to-variables ratio, we also included data from 32 participants
who completed an experimental condition that was not included in
the present study. As in Studies 1 and 2, we also specified that only
two factors be extracted. These two factors accounted for 66% of
the variance in the 29 21-day mean affect ratings. The first factor,
which accounted for 40% of the variance, was clearly a measure ofnegative affect, with loadings greater than .80 for typical negative
affects such as bitter, sad, and afraid, and no loadings greater than
.40 with any of the positive affects. The second factor, which
accounted for 26% of the variance, was clearly a measure of
positive affect, with typical positive affects such as happy, excited,and inspired loading greater than .80 on this factor and no loadings
greater than .30 with any of the negative affects. The positive
affect and negative affect factor scores were only modestly correlated, r(N ! 96) ! $.18, p % .05.
As can be seen in Table 4, the gratitude intervention produced
higher scores on the positive affect factor (M ! 0.35, SD ! 1.13)
than did the control condition (M ! $0.25, SD ! 0.98), F(1,63) ! 5.18, p ! .026, d ! .56. Also, the gratitude condition
produced lower scores on the negative affect factor (M ! $0.26,
SD ! 0.73) than did the control condition (M ! 0.26, SD ! 1.23),
F(1, 63) ! 4.37, p ! .041, d ! $.51. Thus, it appeared that thegratitude condition not only fostered daily positive affect, but also,
reduced daily negative affect, during the 21-day study period.

385

positive affect was regressed on the intervention effect and gratitude simultaneously, gratitude had a significant unique association
with positive affect (" ! .78, p & .001) but the intervention did not(" ! .01, p ! .92). Conversely, when gratitude was regressed on
the intervention effect and positive affect simultaneously, positive
affect had a significant unique association with gratitude (" ! .73,
p & .001), but the intervention effect also had a small, statisticallysignificant effect on gratitude (" ! $.17, p ! .044).
The indirect (mediated) effect of the intervention on positive
affect is equal to the product of the correlation coefficient indexing
the intervention-gratitude relationship (r ! $.37) and the regression coefficient indexing the so-called effect of gratitude on positive affect (" ! .78). The product of these two coefficients equals$.29. The proportion of the total intervention-positive affect association (i.e., r ! $.28) that is accounted for by the mediating
effects of gratitude can therefore be computed as the quotient of
the indirect effect to the total effect. Multiplying this quotient($.29/$.28) by 100% yields a value exceeding 100%, so, on thebasis of the available evidence, we can conceptualize gratitude as
a complete mediator of the intervention’s effect on positive affect.
Conversely, if we assume that the effects of the intervention on
gratitude were mediated by positive affect, we would calculate theindirect effect of the intervention on gratitude as [($.28)(.73)] !
$.20. The proportion of the total effect of the intervention on
gratitude (r ! $.37) that can be attributed to the indirect effects of
the intervention on positive affect therefore is $.20/$.37 ! 55%.
Thus, as we found in Study 2, it appears reasonable to conclude
that gratitude completely mediates the effects of the gratitudeintervention on positive affect, but it does not appear that theeffects of the gratitude intervention on grateful emotion werestrictly the by-product of the intervention’s more general effects on
positive affect.

Effects on Subjective Well-Being
Gratitude as a Mediator of the Interventions’ Effects on
Positive AffectMean daily gratitude was correlated with mean daily positive
affect, r(N ! 65) ! .77, p & .001, but not with mean daily
negative affect, r(N ! 65) ! .10, p ! .43. Because, as in Study 2,
the gratitude intervention appeared to increase mean daily gratitude as well as mean daily positive affect, and because these two
measures themselves were significantly correlated, we examined
whether the effect of the gratitude intervention on daily positive
affect was mediated by the effect of the gratitude intervention on
gratitude. We also explored the possibility that the effect of thegratitude intervention on daily gratitude could be conceptualized
as simply the by-product of its general effect on mean daily
positive affect. As in Study 2, we converted the difference in theeffects of these two interventions on gratitude and positive affectto correlation coefficients to enhance the interpretability of ourmediational analysis.
The correlation of the intervention effect (i.e., gratitude vs.
control) with gratitude was r(N ! 65) ! $.37, p ! .003, with thenegative sign indicating that the mean gratitude score for participants in the control condition was lower than that for those in thegratitude condition. Similarly, the correlation of the intervention
effect on positive affect was r(N ! 65) ! $.28, p ! .026. When

Subjective appraisals. As in Study 1, participants in the gratitude condition reported considerably more satisfaction with theirlives as a whole, felt more optimism about the upcoming week,
and felt more connected with others than did participants in thecontrol condition (see Table 5). Therefore, it appears that participation in the gratitude condition led to substantial and consistentimprovements in people’s assessments of the global well-being.

Effects on Health Measures
As can be seen in Table 6, participants in the gratitude condition
reported getting more hours of sleep each night than did particiTable 5
Comparisons of Groups by Measures of Subjective Well-Being,
Study 3
Dependent variable

Gratitude

ControlF(1, 63)

Life as whole
Upcoming week
Connected with others

5.54
5.70
5.77

4.80
5.20
5.07

13.77**
5.38*
11.67**

Note. N ! 65.
* p & .05. ** p & .01.

386

EMMONS AND MCCULLOUGH

Table 6Comparisons of Groups on Measures of Physical Well-Being,
Study 3
Dependent variable

Gratitude

ControlF(1, 63)

Hours of sleep
How refreshed on waking
Physical pain
Pain interference
Exercise (yes/no)
Functional status

7.58
3.04
2.96
2.30
1.60
1.63

7.06
2.58
3.20
2.35
1.72
1.58

5.60*
3.09*
0.91
0.05
1.78
0.49

Note. N ! 65.
* p & .05.

pants in the control condition. However, in contrast to Study 1,
there were no other differences in reported physical health symptoms or on the six-item measure of functional status.

Observer Reports of Well-Being
For the 26 participants in the gratitude condition and in thecontrol condition, we computed the mean positive affect, negative
affect, and life satisfaction on the basis of the reports submitted bytheir spouse or significant other. The participants in the gratitudecondition were rated as higher in positive affect (3.68 vs. 3.31, p !
.06) and life satisfaction (4.42 vs. 3.63, p & .02) than participantsin the control condition; no difference was observed for negative
affect. These data indicate that the benefits of the gratitude listing,in comparison with a control group, transcend self-perceptions andare evident at least to significant others.

Discussion
As in Study 1, the gratitude manipulation affected subjective life
appraisals. As in Study 2, the gratitude manipulation appeared tocreate increases in positive affect, as well as reductions in negative
affect. Once again, mediational analyses showed that gratitude wasuniquely responsible for the effect of the intervention on positive
affect. In addition, the gratitude intervention also appears to have
improved people’s amount of sleep and the quality of that sleep.
Furthermore, the effects on well-being (positive affect and life
satisfaction) were apparent to the participants’ spouse or significant other. However, similar to Study 2, there were no measurable
effects of the manipulation on other measures of physical health orhealth behaviors.

General Discussion
A prevailing sentiment in both classical and popular writings on
happiness is that an effective approach for maximizing one’s
contentment is to be consciously grateful for one’s blessings. It
would seem that, on the basis of the results of these three experimental studies, there is some truth to this wisdom. Our results
provide some important findings that have not been reported in theempirical literature on happiness. There do appear to exist benefits
to regularly focusing on one’s blessings. The advantages are mostpronounced when compared with a focus on hassles or complaints,
yet are still apparent in comparison with simply reflecting the

major events in one’s life, on ways in which one believes one isbetter off than comparison with others, or with a control group. In
Study 1, we found that a weekly benefit listing was associated withmore positive and optimistic appraisals of one’s life, more timespent exercising, and fewer reported physical symptoms. In
Study 2, self-guided daily gratitude exercises were associated withhigher levels of positive affect. People led to focus on theirblessings were also more likely to report having helped someone
with a personal problem or offered emotional support to another,suggesting prosocial motivation as a consequence of the gratitudeinduction. This finding lends support to the hypothesis that gratitude serves as a moral motivator (McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons, & Larson, 2001). The daily manipulation in Studies 2 and 3,
were, on average, more powerful in facilitating gratitude than was
the weekly listing used in Study 1. Consequently, the attendanteffect sizes for the manipulation were larger in Study 2. Study 3
examined the effects of the gratitude manipulation in a sample ofadults with NMD. We found that random assignment to the gratitude condition resulted in greater levels of positive affect, more
sleep, better sleep quality, and greater optimism and a sense ofconnectedness to others. In Study 3, we even found that thegratitude intervention led to reductions in negative affect, a findingthat is consistent with correlational research reporting that trait
gratitude is associated with less negative affect (McCullough et al.,2002). Of most importance, our mediational analyses in Studies 2
and 3 revealed that the effects of the intervention on gratitude were
specifically the results of the gratitude induction and were not theby-product of the more general effect of the intervention on
positive affect.

Strengths and Limitations
Because of the dearth of experimental research on strategies forcultivating positive affect in daily life, the research reported inthese studies offer important contributions not previously demonstrated. We believe that we have established a rather easily implemented strategy for improving one’s level of well-being. We do
not know how long these effects last and whether they can besustained over time. There does seem to be evidence that some ofthe effects on well-being are apparent to others, as the observer
ratings in Study 3 indicate. Future studies will need to be designed
to examine long-term consequences of counting blessings.
One of the unique features of this research is that we randomly
assigned participants to conditions. The literature on personality
and subjective well-being is almost entirely correlational in nature.
It should be kept in mind that the manipulation used in these threestudies represents, in our view, a rather minimal intervention. We
asked participants to reflect, either once a week or once a day for 2
to 3 weeks, on what they have to be grateful for and we expected
this limited request to impact on well-being. Seen in that light, theresults we obtained were rather noteworthy. After all, there are amyriad of influences on well-being, from personality factors togenetic influences to chronic and temporary life events, and thus
any one factor by itself would not be expected to be particularly
potent. We are under no illusion that we were able to inculcate adeep sense of gratefulness as a fundamental life orientation or to
instill the virtue of gratitude as a result of this brief manipulation.
Nevertheless, we believe that given the previous theoretical argu-

GRATITUDE AND WELL-BEING

ments and the limited empirical work concerning gratitude, that an
intentional grateful focus is one form of cognitive appraisal of
one’s life circumstances with the ability to impact long-term levels
of well-being.
In each study, inducing a state of gratefulness through theself-guided gratitude exercises led to some emotional, physical, orinterpersonal benefits. Unfortunately, not all findings replicatedacross the three studies. With respect to the failure to replicate theexercise finding, we suspect that 2–3 weeks is simply too short a
period of monitoring to observe an effect. People are unlikely toalter habitual exercise patterns within such a short period of time.
We are confident that this was a real effect in Study 1, and did not
simply reflect self-perceptions. Studies have found that self-reportsof exercise correlate reliably with physical fitness levels and tophysiological indices such as resting heart rate (Brown, 1991).
Similarly, health complaints, reflecting as they do stable predispositions (Wangby, 2000) would also be unlikely to shift significantly within a short time span. Other methodological factors may
be operating as well. Inspection of mean levels of symptom reporting in the first two studies revealed extremely low levels of
symptomatology in Study 2 (roughly half of the mean levels
reported in Study 1). This restriction of range could have attenuated the effects of the experimental manipulation in the daily
study. Aggregating symptoms reports over longer time frames (asin Study 1) may reveal more reliable effects.

Relative Magnitude of the Effect Sizes
We hypothesized that reflecting on ways in which one perceives
oneself as being better off than others would have less of abeneficial effect on well-being than would consciously counting
one’s blessings. Somewhat contrary to our expectations, we did
not find that the downward social comparison group experienced
statistically significantly lower levels of positive affect as compared with the gratitude-outlook group. Similarly, the social comparison group reported only marginally lower levels of gratefulemotions (grateful, thankful, and appreciative) than did participants in the gratitude condition. However, all of the mean differences were in the predicted direction, with the downward social
comparison condition falling between the gratitude and hassles
conditions on almost all of the positive moods rated. Studies havedocumented that downward social comparison is an effective
coping strategy (Stanton, Danoff-Burg, & Cameron, 1999) and it
has even been suggested as a possible route to gratitude, which
under certain circumstances and for certain people, might increase
their levels of thankfulness (Miller, 1995). Reflecting on the positive aspects of one’s life, a process common to both the downward
social comparison and gratitude conditions, has benefits whencompared with a focus on hassles and complaints. Given thatgratitude is a positive affective state that covaries with otherpositive emotions (Mayer et al., 1991), it would be surprising if amanipulation that elevated positive affect would leave gratefulemotions untouched. Yet, gratitude appears to be the more potent
elicitor of pleasant affect. Because of its potential for elicitingpride and/or envy (Smith, 2000), we cannot recommend downward
social comparison as a general strategy for inducing feelings ofgratitude when more direct routes are available. Downward social
comparisons have also been shown to have negative implications

387

for the self and to lead to negative affect (Buunk, Collins, Taylor,& VanYperen, 1990). The contribution of comparison-based judgmental processes for eliciting gratitude (e.g., counterfactual thinking; Teigen, 1997) is an intriguing research question that is in needof further study.
When considering the mean effect sizes, the difference between
the gratitude and hassles conditions became more pronounced inStudy 2, the first daily study. This indicates that, relative to a focus
on complaints, an effective strategy for producing reliably higher
levels of pleasant affect is for people to write, on a daily basis,
about those aspects of their lives for which they are grateful.
Moreover, the participants in the gratitude condition were more
likely to have offered others emotional support, suggesting that not
all benefits were solely intrapsychic.

Alternative Explanations
Is it possible to simply attribute the effects of the intervention to
demand characteristics? If the results were due to demand characteristics, then ratings on the outcome variables should have been
affected uniformly. However, the observed pattern was far lesspredictable. Those in the gratitude condition did not always show
advantages over the other conditions, and what advantages they
did exhibit were rather selective. There were clearly limits to theeffect. In Study 3, for example, people in the gratitude condition
did not feel less pain or have fewer difficulties in activities of dailyliving. Attempts were also made by us to conceal the hypothesis in
the studies. Participants were unaware that they were participating
in a random design experiment, and would have not been privy tothe various experimental conditions. They were not informed that
it was a research study on gratitude and well-being. The additionof the social comparison condition in Study 2, where the demands
appear similar yet the effect of the gratitude manipulation waseven stronger, also argues against a simple demand alternative. It
might be also wondered whether the same pattern would have been
observed if we had simply asked people to dwell on the positives
in their lives or had them otherwise engage in happy thinking.
Research literature and conceptual analyses of gratitude suggestthat gratitude is an experiential state that overlaps with yet isdistinct from simply “positive thinking.” We did not find that thegrateful group felt less angry, depressed, sad, or other unpleasantstates as a global positivity hypothesis might suggest. Furthermore,in the sense that gratitude is a moral affect that motivates prosocial
behavior, one would anticipate different consequences or action
tendencies for gratitude as opposed to happiness. Indeed, we didfind in Study 2 that people in the gratitude condition were significantly more likely to have helped another with a personal problem
compared with those in the contrasting conditions.

Gratitude and Well-Being: An Upward Spiral?
Insofar that it is not possible to account for our results in termsof methodological factors, what mechanisms, psychological orotherwise, might explain why participants in the gratitude condition generally evidenced higher levels of well-being than those in
the comparison conditions? We believe that Fredrickson’s (1998,
2000) broaden and build model of positive emotions may beespecially helpful here. She has argued that positive emotions

388

EMMONS AND MCCULLOUGH

broaden mindsets and build enduring personal resources (Fredrickson, 1998). These resources function as reserves to be drawn on intimes of need. Seen in the light of this model, gratitude is effective
in increasing well-being as it builds psychological, social, andspiritual resources. Gratitude inspires prosocial reciprocity (McCullough et al., 2002), and indeed, is one of the primary psychological mechanisms thought to underlie reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971). The experience of gratitude, and the actions stimulated
by it, build and strengthen social bonds and friendships. Moreover,encouraging people to focus on the benefits they have received
from others leads them to feel loved and cared for by others(Reynolds, 1983). Therefore, gratitude appears to build friendships
and other social bonds. These are social resources because, intimes of need, these social bonds are wellsprings to be tapped forthe provision of social support. Gratitude, thus, is a form of love,a consequence of an already formed attachment as well as aprecipitating condition for the formation of new affectional bonds(Roberts, in press). Gratitude is also likely to build and strengthen
a sense of spirituality, given the strong historical association between gratitude and religion (Emmons & Crumpler, 2000; McCullough et al., 2002). Finally, to the extent that gratitude, like otherpositive emotions, broadens the scope of cognition and enables
flexible and creative thinking, it also facilitates coping with stressand adversity (Aspinwall, 1998; Folkman & Moskowitz, 2000).
According to the broaden-and-build model, gratitude not only
makes people feel good in the present, but it also increases thelikelihood that people will function optimally and feel good in the
future. Watkins (in press) describes several other potential mechanisms that might account for the link between grateful cognitions
and subjective well-being.

Directions for Future Research
Although we have made some progress in understanding how
gratitude as a conscious cognitive strategy might affect psychological well-being, many important questions remain to be asked.
For example, we have treated gratitude as a malleable characteristic in our research, yet it may also possess trait-like qualities(McCullough et al., 2002). To what degree would dispositional
gratefulness, or other individual differences, interact with a gratitude manipulation to either strengthen or weaken the effect? Can
gratitude be cultivated equally well in men and women? It has
been argued that conventional, self-reliant men may be averse toexperiences and expressions of gratefulness to the extent that theysignify dependency and indebtedness (Solomon, 1995). Those
designing gratitude interventions may have to be sensitive todifferent meanings that men and women might associate withgratitude.
We do not know the extent to which gratitude interventions
might be effective in people with affective disorders, such as(sub)clinical depression. If a daily gratitude focus can augment
positive affect, as Studies 2 and 3 suggest, then perhaps suchintervention may be effective in alleviating milder forms of depressed affect. Can thankfulness be incorporated into cognitive–
behavioral interventions modeled after those that are effective ininstilling a sense of optimism (Buchanan, Gardenswartz, & Seligman, 1999)? If so, might these also be effective in the prevention
or alleviation of debilitating negative affect, anger, and resentment(Roberts, in press), or even eating disorders (Morishita, 2000)?
Naikan therapy, a demanding form of self-reflective therapy originating in Japan, is a technique in which clients are induced toexperience a strong sense of gratitude to those who have provided
them with benefits (Hedstrom, 1994; Reynolds, 1983). It has been
associated with some positive outcomes, including increased favorable evaluations of others (Hedstrom, 1994). Beyond our rudimentary efforts to cultivate gratitude in these studies, what are themost effective, long-term ways of kindling grateful thoughts andactions? What chronic thoughts and attitudes thwart grateful thinking? These questions and others constitute an agenda for thegrowing science of gratitude research.

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Received February 7, 2001
Revision received August 29, 2002
Accepted September 3, 2002 !