Why Gratitude Matters

Show Notes

Gratitude is a quality people know is important, but sometimes struggle to define, cultivate, and practice consistently. In this episode of Baylor Connections, Jo-Ann Tsang, a Baylor social psychologist and leading gratitude researcher, explores what gratitude is, what it isn't, and why it plays such a powerful role in well-being, relationships, and human flourishing. Drawing from years of research, Tsang shares practical ways to cultivate gratitude and explains how even small expressions of thanks can have lasting effects.

THE CONVERSATION HIGHLIGHTS:

• What gratitude is, and why it's about much more than simply saying "thank you" 
• What researchers have learned about the impact of gratitude on well-being, relationships, and personal growth 
• Common misconceptions that can keep people from understanding or practicing gratitude in healthy ways 
• How social comparison and modern culture can make gratitude more difficult to practice 
• Practical habits that can help people cultivate gratitude in everyday life 
• Why expressing gratitude directly to others often has a bigger impact than people expect 
• How gratitude contributes to human flourishing and helps people focus on what matters most 
• What studying gratitude has taught Jo-Ann Tsang about relationships, purpose, and living well 

Transcript

Derek Smith:
We're talking gratitude today on Baylor Connections as we move into the month of November. It's certainly a natural time to talk about gratitude with Thanksgiving coming ahead. And there's that tradition many families have talking about what they're thankful for. We're going to talk about something a little different. Gratitude, what it is, how you practice it, what it means for yourself and the people around you, and there's no one better to discuss that with, than Jo-Ann Tsang from Baylor Psychology.
She's a leading expert and researcher on gratitude, and she's with us today on the program. Jo-Ann, excited to dive into gratitude, what it is, what it isn't. And thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today.

Jo-Ann Tsang:
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Derek Smith:
We're glad to have you here. And I am curious, when you talk to people and you tell them, "I research gratitude," what are some of the common responses you get? That's not something everyone researches, a little bit different, but an important topic.

Jo-Ann Tsang:
They often invite me to talk about gratitude in November.

Derek Smith:
Oh yeah, fair enough. That makes sense.

Jo-Ann Tsang:
They're usually surprised because that's not commonly studied in a scientific way. And a lot of people, my acquaintances might know that I'm a professor. And then they tend to be really interested and ask more about, "Well, I've heard that gratitude is a good thing."

Derek Smith:
Well, we'll talk about that here on the program, but let's define it. I think that's a good place to really start. When we talk about gratitude for the next 20 minutes or so, what is it that we're talking about?

Jo-Ann Tsang:
Usually in American psychology, we think about gratitude. If you think about the emotion of gratitude, it's feeling a positive emotion when some other person does something good for you.

Derek Smith:
Are there misconceptions about gratitude that you run into a lot?

Jo-Ann Tsang:
I feel like people either think that gratitude is too positive or too negative. The positive part leans into the toxic positivity where they think, "Oh, people are telling me I have to be grateful all the time, that I'm not allowed to feel any negative emotions." And I don't think that's necessarily the case, although there is that message out there from some people, which is why there might be that idea.
And then I feel like people might feel too negatively about gratitude that there's the misconception that if you express gratitude, it makes you too weak or you're admitting that you can't do something on your own.

Derek Smith:
That's interesting. So, a lot of different angles from which people come at gratitude. And I guess what you're saying is here, the positive feelings towards it, the negative feelings can be very personal for people with the backgrounds, the personal stories and histories they bring into it.

Jo-Ann Tsang:
And the things that they see on the media or when they see other people express gratitude every day on social media during November, it gives people one side of gratitude, but that's not all of it. And maybe not even the deepest part of it.

Derek Smith:
Before we dive further, I want to ask you, for you personally, why was this the right field of study? How did you lean into really becoming someone who looks at gratitude from a scholarly perspective?

Jo-Ann Tsang:
Well, I worked as a postdoc with Dr. Mike McCullough when he was at SMU in 2000, and he had a grant to study gratitude. And one of the reasons I think he selected me for this postdoc position is that my research interest overlapped with similar concepts. So, I was studying psychology of religion and helping, and gratitude is valued in a lot of different world religions.
And you can think of gratitude also as being related to helping, that when someone helps you, you can have gratitude as a response and then gratitude increases your helping behavior back towards the benefactor or even towards unrelated others. So, there was a lot of good overlap there and it's just very pleasant to read about what people are grateful for.

Derek Smith:
Is it unique to study gratitude here at Baylor as opposed to other institutions?

Jo-Ann Tsang:
I think that it makes gratitude particularly interesting at Baylor because of the religious overlap. So, I don't really have to explain very hard to people at Baylor why gratitude's important to study because they're familiar with Christian doctrines that say that gratitude towards others and towards God is really important. And I think it's really easy to get people to talk about what they're grateful for here.

Derek Smith:
What are some ways you study it? This isn't a traditional scientific observation, is it? So, how do you study it? What are some of the ways you work to get the data that you need?

Jo-Ann Tsang:
You can get people to think about gratitude. So, you can do this by giving them hypothetical scenarios or stories. So, in an early paper, I had people read about and imagine receiving help from somebody. So, if someone offered to help you buy books, you didn't have enough money to buy your textbooks for school. And then if they had a certain reaction when they were helping you, like if they treated it like you owed them something now, how much would that elicit gratitude and how much would that elicit indebtedness?
So, I had people rate their feelings of gratitude and indebtedness after reading that story. And so, when you get people to think about and imagine hypothetical stories, you have a lot of experimental control because then you can see how does tweaking the story in this one way affect people's reactions? But my favorite way to study gratitude is to actually get people to feel grateful in the laboratory.
So, I bring them in and I have them believe that they're interacting with someone else in another room who's messaging them and they have a certain number of resources that they can distribute between each other. And so, when the other person gives them a lot of resources, this should induce gratitude and then I can see how is that going to affect their helping behavior? Or if they're thinking about religion while this interaction's going on, are they going to experience more behavior? Those sorts of things.

Derek Smith:
As you do that, what are some of the questions that drive your work? What questions are you most interested to try to answer through these studies?

Jo-Ann Tsang:
I'm a basic researcher in social psychology, so I like to look at what are the things that encourage gratitude and what are the outcomes. So, it's just looking at the nature of gratitude and what causes it. So, early on, I was looking at some of the things that facilitated gratitude, like if you got a bigger favor, if someone did something out of benevolent intentions or if they were trying to be selfish.
And then I was looking at the outcome of helping because I've been studying that before. And so, not only does looking at does gratitude make us more helpful, but is gratitude... When you help out of gratitude, is it a more altruistic motivation? So, are you helping the person back because you care about them or are there selfish reasons why gratitude might cause you to help? So, in a study that I did with my graduate student at the time, Steven Martin, we looked at does knowing that you're going to interact with the person again, does that encourage a stronger link between gratitude and helping?
Or if you think that that person helped me and I'm never going to see them again, do you still help them back? And we found that people did. So, that ruled out the motivation of, "Oh, maybe people are just helping after gratitude because they want further benefits from this person who can give them gifts." And then we also looked at when you have the opportunity to help someone who's helped you, if they're not ever going to know that it's from you, that the help is from you, if it's completely anonymous, are you still going to help them?
And we found that this lowered people's help a little bit, but when people did help, it was still highly related to feelings of gratitude that they felt. So, when you had this stronger emotional reaction of gratitude to a favor that someone did for you, then this caused you to help. Even when we told them, oh, they're going to think that these resources they got were from the experimenter. They're not going to know it was from you, and people would still help if they felt very grateful.
So, this suggests that maybe there might be an altruistic motivation in there, and I think that that's very fascinating to think about because it's got ramifications for how gratitude contributes to relationships and even to well-being, I think.

Derek Smith:
Jo-Ann, you've used the word altruistic a lot or altruism. And when you think about gratitude from the perspective of both a recipient and the person who is expressing gratitude, how much does that idea of, is this real? Where is this coming from? How much does that impact both people in an expression of gratitude, if you will? Is that something that you find people think about a lot or is that just something that you find important to study to get more to the root of?

Jo-Ann Tsang:
Well, I think it's actually really important in causing gratitude. So, when the study that I just described, it was looking at when you want to help someone because you feel grateful, is that altruistic? But there's a lot of research too that looks at when someone helps you, if you perceive that help to be altruistic or about you, that it's authentic, they care about you, then you're more likely to feel grateful.
If you think that someone's helping you because they want to get help back in the future, then that's probably going to elicit a more negative sort of feeling, indebtedness. And you might reciprocate because that's the norm you're supposed to reciprocate, but it's not going to be this relationship-enhancing gratitude experience like it would be if I thought someone helped me with no thought of getting any benefit for themselves and then I might...
That cues me into like, oh, this person cares about me. I might want to nurture this relationship with this person in the future. And so, it would cause an upward spiral of maybe reciprocal helping and a better friendship.

Derek Smith:
Because I think we all feel the pressure, societal norms, right? We all know that there's norms and expecting... I think we all want to express gratitude for things, but I think do you ever get to the root of, "Hey, is this just because this is what's expected or because this is what this person is actually feeling?"

Jo-Ann Tsang:
Yes, we try and get at that as well. There's been a lot of research looking at the distinction in American culture between gratitude and indebtedness, and they've looked in other cultures as well. And gratitude and indebtedness tend to co-occur. Indebtedness tends to feel more negative to people and individualistic cultures because we don't like to be obligated to do something for someone else. So, indebtedness feels negative, gratitude feels more positive.
And in several of these studies where I bring people into the laboratory and have them believe that someone else has given them a benefit, I measure their gratitude as well as their more negative feelings of feeling obligated or indebted. And even when we statistically control for these negative feelings, gratitude often still predicts helping in return, but gratitude isn't the only thing that's going on. So, in the real world, it's very messy. So, there's going to be positive and negative reactions to feeling help, certainly.

Derek Smith:
Well, Jo-Ann, as we go deeper in this here, expressions of gratitude, we're going to talk about for the person expressing it now, feeling it and expressing it. What role does gratitude play in an individual just in their own flourishing? When we talk about that idea of human flourishing, what role does gratitude play in that?

Jo-Ann Tsang:
Well, there's been a lot of research looking at gratitude and individual well-being, and so there are several different types of gratitude interventions. One of the easiest ones to do is a gratitude journal. So, maybe every night before you go to sleep, write down three things that you're grateful for. And if you can think of three different things each time that might help you broaden the things, the benefits that you see in your life, and that's related to increased life satisfaction and well-being and positive emotions.
Other interventions that have been shown to have a good effect. One of them that's particularly powerful is writing a letter or a text of thanks to someone that you haven't thanked before or regularly sending texts to people, maybe three texts a day where you thank three different people for something that they've done for you. I think that also brings in a component of social interaction.
So, you're not just keeping it to yourself, but you're expressing the thanks to somebody else, and so that has the potential to build a relationship and we're relational beings, and so that tends to increase our well-being. And then in addition to individual well-being, there's relational well-being. There's been studies that look specifically at couples, and some of them have looked at both members of a couple dyad and asked them to report on how grateful they feel and whether they've expressed gratitude to their partner, or they might be instructed to express gratitude to their partner on a regular basis.
And so, they ask both the participant and their partner how happy are they? How satisfied are they with their relationship? How committed are they? These things tend to increase when people express gratitude to their partner, and especially if the expression is reciprocated, if the other person then also expresses gratitude. It also has the positive outcome of increasing helping, like I've mentioned before, and I feel like that's more of a social well-being, so that fits in with flourishing, but it's not just limited at the individual level.

Derek Smith:
Why is it important? I think you've painted this picture, but I want to ask specifically, why is it important to be intentional about practicing gratitude? Because on one hand, you could almost say, "If I'm being intentional about it, then I'm not being natural," but I don't think that's the case from what you've said. So, why is it important to try to be intentional about it?

Jo-Ann Tsang:
I would think that anytime we want to build a habit, we need to start out being intentional. So, I might not have a good habit for physical exercise, and I can't just sit around and say, "Oh, well, I'll fit the exercise in whenever it comes up." That might work a little bit. So, I walked from my car to the parking lot, but in order to get more exercise, I have to be intentional. So, I have to intentionally park further away from my office, and then I'll have longer to walk.
I have to make the decision I'm going to go up the stairs instead of take the elevator, or I'm going to practice Tai chi in the morning. These are things that we have to consciously decide to do. And if we have an intention plan beforehand, I'm going to make this part of my morning ritual, I'm going to wake up and exercise, then that makes it more likely it's going to happen until it doesn't need to be intentional anymore, until it's part of my morning structure and I don't even really have to think about it.
So, I think the same thing would be for gratitude, that it might have to start out very intentionally. I might have to decide what gratitude activities are going to work best for me with my temperament and my situation and the time that I have, and then I have to make a plan for here's how I'm going to do it. That's part of why I'm not able to do the gratitude journal every day is I don't have a good plan, but if I worked it into my schedule, like I'm going to do this before bed every night instead of scrolling on social media, then I'm going to be more likely to do it and then pretty soon it's going to come naturally and I'm going to be in such a habit of thinking before bed, what am I grateful for that I don't even have to intentionally think about it.
It'll just come up.

Derek Smith:
Well, Jo-Ann, as we head to the final couple minutes of the program, I have a couple more questions for you, one of which, again, you've touched on, but I want to ask you specifically again as a takeaway for people. If you are saying to me, "Derek, you expressing gratitude is good for you because..." Based on what you've researched, what you've studied, what is the because again?

Jo-Ann Tsang:
I think the because is that it strengthens our relationships because gratitude is about other people and people can be thought of generally. My colleague, Dr. Schnitker and I have recently started studying gratitude towards God, so that also can count as someone who gives us benefits towards whom we can be grateful. And relationships and social interactions are important for humans and important for our well-being.
And so, I think that's part of why gratitude is there and it's reinforcing the positivity in our relationships. We shouldn't think that we have to be positive, and just because we think about our benefits and what we're grateful for doesn't erase the fact that there are negative things, but I think it puts our life in a better context to be able to hold both the negative and the positive at the same time.

Derek Smith:
That's great. That's a great description there and applying that to people you know when you think about people you admire, people that you've worked with or seen that you admire and want to be like, what role have you seen gratitude play in their lives?

Jo-Ann Tsang:
I think gratitude is a component. It's not the only thing of course, but when I saw that you had that question, I was thinking about who do I admire and what component, how does gratitude fit in there? I think that the people that I see, not just that are the most happy, but do the most good, see life as a gift. And so, gratitude fits in there, but it's so much more, right? Because life is a gift and they feel this gratitude, they're savoring things, they're seeing people in front of them, they're mindful and they're there and they're present because this is a gift that we're not entitled to and that it will be taken away.
We just don't know when. And so, we need to appreciate this moment that we have now. And so, even if I have a moment that seems mundane and boring, I'm washing dishes and I have so many things to do, if I remember that life is a gift and the fact that I have running water and dishes are a gift, then I might be able to sit down and enjoy washing the dishes and talking to my daughter while we wash dishes together or just having this moment to myself or being able to feel the water over my hands.
It changes the way that we see life to think about life as a gift, and it changes the way we interact with others. These people that I admire who see life as a gift are giving that gift away too to other people. They're giving their time and their resources and their presence to others, and that's very admirable.

Derek Smith:
Well, Jo-Ann, we appreciate the work you do. We're glad to have that taking place here at Baylor and appreciate you giving us some very practical takeaways and some of that, a little bit of a research eye towards a topic that we hear a lot about, but don't always stop and really think about. So, thank you for that. And although we are guilty as charged, we thought about having you on in November and we did.
So, next time we have you on, we'll have to mix up the month a little bit, okay? We'll do that. We fit into that box pretty neatly. Well, we'll work to have you on again one of these days and talk more another month.

Jo-Ann Tsang:
Thank you.

Derek Smith:
But yeah, thank you. Jo-Ann Tsang from Baylor Psychology, our guest today on Baylor Connections. I'm Derek Smith, a reminder you can find this program and other editions of Baylor Connections online. You can find them on the Baylor University YouTube channel. They're downloadable on iTunes and you can find show notes and more at baylor.edu/connections. Thanks for joining us on Baylor Connections.