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What Good Is Gratitude?

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Gratitude and the Good Life

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Abstract

If gratitude is indeed worthy of study in positive psychology, then research should demonstrate that gratitude is important to the good life. If gratitude amplifies the good, then gratitude should enhance well-being. In this chapter I explore this issue by investigating the relationships between gratitude in three areas of well-being: emotional, social, and physical. Both correlation and experimental studies provide solid support for the theory that gratitude enhances emotional and social well-being. Furthermore, preliminary research offers promising results that gratitude supports various aspects of physical health as well. Taken together, research suggests that gratitude is one of the most important aspects of human flourishing.

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete until it is expressed.

–C. S. Lewis (1958, p. 95)

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  1. Department of Psychology, Eastern Washington University, Cheney, WA, USA

    Philip C. Watkins

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Watkins, P.C. (2014). What Good Is Gratitude?. In: Gratitude and the Good Life. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7253-3_4

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