Skip to Main Content
Positive Psychology in Practice: Promoting Human Flourishing in Work, Health, Education, and Everyday Life, 2nd Edition
book

Positive Psychology in Practice: Promoting Human Flourishing in Work, Health, Education, and Everyday Life, 2nd Edition

by Stephen Joseph
March 2015
Beginner content levelBeginner
896 pages
37h 15m
English
Wiley
Content preview from Positive Psychology in Practice: Promoting Human Flourishing in Work, Health, Education, and Everyday Life, 2nd Edition

Chapter 33The Power and Practice of Gratitude

GIACOMO BONO, MIKKI KRAKAUER AND JEFFREY J. FROH

Authors' Note. Preparation of this chapter was supported by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

A central tenet of research in positive psychology is that supportive social relationships are essential to human thriving. Gratitude is perfectly suited to this end. Gratitude is the feeling people experience when they receive a gift or benefit from another person. It can also be an attitude of appreciating life as a gift. People with a grateful disposition tend to experience it more frequently, more intensely, toward more people, and for more things in their life at any given moment (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002). We begin this chapter with a brief review of basic research on gratitude, focusing first on adult populations and then on youth populations. We then turn to applied research pertaining to clinical purposes for adults and academic purposes for youth. Finally, we discuss how gratitude is related to the “good life” for adults and youth and close with suggestions for future research directions. It is our contention that gratitude is important for positively transforming individuals, families, and organizations.

A Brief History of Research on Gratitude

Social scientists have focused on gratitude since the 1930s (Baumgarten-Tramer, 1938; Bergler, 1945, 1950; Gouldner, 1960; Heider, 1958; Schwartz, 1967; Simmel, 1950). Though it has been considered fundamental ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Start your free trial

You might also like

The Social Psychology of Change Management

The Social Psychology of Change Management

Steven ten Have, John Rijsman, Wouter ten Have, Joris Westhof

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781118757253Purchase book