Ok, I have a confession to make: I don't feel grateful every time someone does something
for me.
I mean, I'm actually a really grateful person, and I know not everybody is-- maybe many people
in this room are-- but sometimes I feel a little burdened.
Sometimes I actually feel misunderstood, like "Why do they think I would want that?"
Sometimes, I don't even notice the thing that the person did for me,because I'm just really
used to them doing it for me.
Every once in a while, though, I feel grateful.
For example, like the other day, when my romantic partner went for a run with me at 9:30 at
night, just to keep me company.
So, aside from the personal benefits that I got from the run, it was a really important
type of moment for me, this gratitude, because it showed me that me understood me, and he
cared.
He knows how much mental health benefit I get from my runs, and he could tell that it
was the end of a long day and I was waffling-- I was thinking about sacrificing my run to
hang out with him,because I really wanted to hang out with him, too.
And so, he just looked at me and said "I'm coming with you and we're leaving in three
minutes."
What an awesome dude!
And I totally needed that run.
So, what my research has shown over the past several years now, is that moments like these,
between people-- these moments when we actually feel grateful, are important in one way, and
it's because they remind us just how great specific other people are for us in our lives.
So, running isn't for everyone, and my guy isn't for everyone (thank goodness!), but
he's totally great for me, and so this is just one way.So, what we've discovered in
our work, is that what we know about emotions, and this is the magic of emotions-- when we
have an experience of gratitude, when that happens, it does more than just remind us
about our partner's good qualities, but an emotional response provides fuel.
In that moment, it coordinates our mind and body and behavior to solve a problem or take
advantage of a situation that is right in front of us, and so what we've discovered
over the past several years of studying gratitude and relationships, is that gratitude motivates
us and it helps us to make gestures that bind us more closely with our romantic partner,
and actually with other social partners in our lives.
So, in this moment with my partner where we had this really great experience, I felt gratitude,
I told him all about it-- how awesome it was and how much I appreciated him, and I felt
valued.
My research suggests that that makes him feel more connected and interested in being in
a relationship.
This opportunity sets up the stage for our next interaction and so forth, as we move
through time.
So, what's really been interesting in this line of research is that when I started, I
actually had some data on people in friendships, and we've started moving into romantic relationships
and people would say things like "Why are you studying gratitude and binding in romantic
relationships?
Aren't people in romantic relationships already bound together?"
Really?
Well, that's a good myth and it's gorgeous,but this myth of true love that we get and it
never fades, but the data from relationship science shows that over time, even for couples
who stay together for decades, relationship satisfaction actually declines, especially
over the first couple of years.
So, this is totally consistent with the principles of what we know about adaptation.
Think about getting a new car, whatever your flavor.
Ok, a new car is shiny and awesome, just like a new relationship, but over time, the car
starts to lose that new car smell, and it starts to become the thing that we use to
get from point A to point B. Maybe over time, we start to look around at the other cars
that are out on the street, and think about upgrading to a new
model.
So, unfortunately for cars, they can't just renew their new car smell with one simple
gesture, but humans can.
Other live interaction partners can do little things, and we're reminded of the little things
about them that we loved when we first met them.
So, let me show you some data that are relevant to adaptation.
This is a study of couples in romantic relationships Every single day for fourteen days we had
each member of the couple-- one of the questions that we had them report on was "How connected
do you feel with your partner today?"You can see here that across 1700 reports, we have
a very satisfied sample of couples.
The scale goes from one to five-- I hope you can see that they're well above a four on
the scale-- on average,across all of the days.
But what we know about the ebb and flow of everyday life is that it's a little more complicated
than that.
Alright, I've graphed the same data a different way, and what you can see here is that every
single line is a different individual participant in the study, and the x-axis (that runs across
the bottom) is every single day (all fourteen days) of the study.
You don't have to be a scientist to be able to see that people go up and down in their
feelings about their partner from one day to the next, even in this really satisfied
sample!
So, I'm sure you can identify with this in your own relationships, your romantic relationships
as well as your friendships.
Even if they're amazing, not every day is amazing.
So, this is where gratitude comes in.
What we found in this study is that on days when one person in the study-- one of the
couple-members said "Hey, I felt a little more gratitude after interacting with my partner
today," their partner independently reported feeling better about the relationship than
they had the day before.
So, we concluded from this study that everyday gratitude can act as a 'booster shot' for
romantic relationships.
Now, what I've been studying for the past couple of years is "How does that happen?"
It's kind of a fascinating research question for an emotions researcher, who-- typically,
emotions researchers, we study one person's own experience of their own emotion.
This one jumps the gap between people to actually influence the thoughts and feelings of the
other person on a pretty regular basis; that's a pretty robust effect that we found.
So, thanks for the generous funding from the John Templeton Foundation and the Greater
Good ScienceCenter, I've actually been working for a couple of years now, trying to figure
out how this might work,and we've been using expressions of gratitude between romantic
partners to test a few different effects.Here you can see, and this is about a third of
my team on this research project over the pastcouple of years (as well as my co-investigators)--
one of the questions that we're testing is "What makesan expression of gratitude so impactful?"
So, we're hoping that if we can start to figure out theme chanisms, then we can actually start
to bring gratitude into people's everyday lives a little bit more gracefully, and then
we're testing the extent of the effects on each member of the dyad.
So, what does the person do when they hear an expression of gratitude?
How does it make them change their own behavior (your original benefactor), what are the downstream
consequences for both people, including physiological effects, like oxytocin and changes in blood
pressure?
So, as of about two hours ago, our 245th couple walked through the doors of my lab for this
study--that's almost 500 people who have expressed gratitude to their partner, given us saliva
samples, given us urine samples, and basically provided about a metric ton of additional
data.
So, I'm really excited--we're wrapping up data collection in a couple of months, and
we'll be doing analysis, and I'm really looking forward to being able to tell you a lot about
what makes gratitude expressions so impactful, and what are the possible downstream consequences.
In the meantime, what I've told you is that I have spent many, many, many years studying--
very closely studying the dynamics of everyday interactions of people who care about each
other a lot.
Specifically, however (and this is relevant to the last set of talks), I've been studying
people who are in happy relationships, who are in good relationships.
So what we've learned, we've learned a lot about how gratitude naturally works, but I'm
not a therapist-- we have not studied gratitude in distressed relationships, we have not studied
gratitude in relationships where one person is abused.
To my knowledge, nobody has.
Those data don't exist, so please, people, go out and do that research.
Until we have data to speak to people who have rocky relationships, I would suggest--
don't necessarily take my 'do it yourself' advice about relationships, that's a different
set of concerns, but-- don't tune me out,because what I'm about to tell you about what we know
from good romantic relationships probably applies to your other good relationships as
well.
Now, if you want to get more out of gratitude in your everyday life, and this is-- these
are things that I would tell my friends that the evidence says most strongly-- if you want
to get more gratitude in yourl ife, you want to start by having more gratitude.
Now, it's a little finicky-- in our previous studies, again, we didn't get the partner
to go and do amazing for their partner.
We didn't get them to give their partner foot rubs and send roses or anything like that.
What I showed you were data about gratitude for the everyday little things.
Now, if you think about your romantic relationships, or even your best friendships, you fell in
love for a reason with this person and if you're sharing life together (in some capacity),
then they're certainly doing lots of things for you already.
But we know, from the psychology, that stress actually is a barrier to looking past ourselves.
So, our lives are busy and stressful and sometimes, we also get into habits with people.
Sometimes, we start to take people for granted.
So, the very first thing that I would say is get out of your head, and start to just
remember the things that your partner does for you.
Now, I'm not promising that you'll actually feel grateful for it, but it increases the
likelihood-- if you notice it-- that you will actually feel gratitude.
Then,all of our research suggests-- my research as well as that from across the field-- suggests
that people who feel grateful want to make sure that the person knows how great they
are, so it naturally moves us to demonstrate this.
The data support this as well, so we have people who feel gratitude and express it,are
more committed to their relationships, they feel better about them-- even better than
people who feel gratitude and don't express it.
So, for the person who feels it, it might help your relationship to express it, but
also, for the person-- this is the natural bridge-- who actually did the kind thing,
for the romantic partner, tell them!
Let them know that they're appreciated.
We have data from a different study where we asked couples (every day) to report every
single day for fourteen days, and again we found when people said that their partner
thanked them that day for something they did, they said they felt better
about the relationship even then they had the day before.So, here, I would-- again,
you have barriers in your everyday life to expressing gratitude.
You might feel distracted by work or kids.
People in long term relationships may think that their people actually just knows how
they feel-- do they?
People who are in new relationships may feel vulnerable telling the person how much it
meant to them, that they did this kind action, but our data show that you have very little
to lose and a lot to gain by following a really simple rule: If you really feel it, just don't
forget to show it.
Here's my last point, that's very important: in all of this, be genuine.
This should be obvious, but in people's rush to kind of apply to practice, it may not be--
your partner knows you pretty well, and they were there when they did the thing for you.
So, if they-- I don't know, try to make you an amazing dinner but botched it, you don't
have to tell them that they're an amazing chef, but do tell them that you genuinely
appreciated about them, about their actions.
So maybe, you liked that they remembered what your favorite dish was, and that they went
out of their way to make your night special.
Whatever's true for you, and I know this from a study where we brought couples into the
lab and we had them, in front of our video cameras, said thanks to their partners for
things-- what we found was no matter how small the gesture, the leading indicator of how
satisfied the partner was with the relationships six months later, was how much the grateful
person made them feel understood, valued, and cared for in the actions that they took
for the grateful person-- on the grateful person's behalf.
So, what I would say to you is 'just be true.'
Look your partner in the eye, and just tell her exactly what it was that you appreciated
about her actions.
So I hope that I've started to demonstrate that gratitude between two people in everyday
life is a bit finicky and that's ok, because gratitude actually runs on the wavelength
of being a genuine signal of care and concern between the two people.
So, I wouldn't force it.
However, our relationship partners are people who can look out for our best interests, help
us accomplish our goals, and help to support us when things aren't going well.
More than just helping us to get through our everyday lives, our romantic partners can
help us thrive.
So, it makes sense to considern oticing what they do, for you.
When you feel it, don't forget to show it and say it like you mean it.
Thank you.