Gratitude is as closely tied to Thanksgiving as turkey and cranberry sauce — yet for many people, the thought of “counting blessings” or writing a heartfelt letter feels uncomfortable.
“It feels cringe,” says personality psychologist Sarah Schnitker of Baylor University.
Still, decades of research show that practising gratitude can bring real benefits: better relationships, greater emotional resilience, and even improvements in blood pressure.
“There’s a study linking gratitude to nearly every marker of well-being,” says Michael McCullough, a social psychologist at UC San Diego.
He acknowledges that some findings may be overstated due to weak study design, and even the best gratitude exercises produce only modest, short-term boosts. They are not a cure-all for serious mental health struggles.
Even so, gratitude clearly offers some emotional payoff.
Why gratitude can feel uncomfortable
Many people dislike the idea of owing something to others. This is especially true for those who value independence or come from cultures where social indebtedness causes guilt.
To address this, researchers have begun studying gratitude directed not toward individuals, but toward God, nature, beauty, or something larger than oneself — a concept known as transcendent gratitude. While Western psychology often avoids spiritual framing, for much of the world, gratitude naturally includes thanking a higher power.
Which gratitude habits improve mood most?
Both interpersonal gratitude (toward people) and transcendent gratitude can lift positive emotions.
In a study published in May, McCullough’s team ranked seven gratitude practices by how much they boosted happiness, contentment, and joy. The findings:
- Most effective: Writing a text or letter expressing gratitude to someone
- Least effective: Listing blessings without addressing anyone
- Moderate boost: Writing gratitude to God, or imagining your life without certain valued things (“mental subtraction”)
However, the researchers didn’t account for personal beliefs — meaning gratitude directed to God would likely show stronger effects among believers.
Schnitker’s team explored this by excluding non-believers from their sample. Among more than 800 participants, writing gratitude letters to God produced greater increases in positive emotions than writing gratitude lists or letters to other people.
How to choose a gratitude practice that suits you
The key is to tailor the practice to personal values:
- Atheists may prefer gratitude toward nature rather than God.
- People who dislike writing long letters may do better with short text messages.
- Someone who wants to strengthen relationships might benefit most from interpersonal gratitude.
As American University psychologist Anthony Ahrens explains, gratitude works like exercise: different approaches suit different people, and the best one is the one you’re willing to do consistently.
Gratitude must be learned — negativity comes naturally
Left unchecked, negative emotions tend to dominate.
Children, for example, are far more inclined to punish others than to express thanks, research shows.
“Gratitude has to be taught,” says Nadia Chernyak, developmental psychologist at UC Irvine. “Grudges are natural.”
And focusing on negativity can worsen mood. In McCullough’s study, most control conditions had no emotional effect — except one: listing daily hassles, which made participants significantly less happy.
“If you want to make someone grumpy, we know exactly how,” McCullough jokes.
Small sparks of joy can add up
Even if gratitude only creates brief moments of joy, practising regularly could allow those moments to accumulate. That’s notable because, among the hundreds of happiness-boosting interventions studied — exercise, meditation, time in nature — only a few reliably improve well-being. Gratitude appears to be one of them.
What exactly is gratitude?
Researchers first began defining gratitude in the early 2000s during the rise of positive psychology. Early theories framed it as a way to repay social debts — an unpacking of the old saying, “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”
McCullough believes gratitude evolved to help humans build the cooperative relationships essential for survival.
“Its basic function is to establish friendships,” he says.
