Grateful recounting enhances subjective well-being: The importance of grateful processing

Abstract

We used a randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of a gratitude 3-blessings treatment for enhancing subjective well-being. Although several experimental studies have investigated gratitude interventions, many of these have used inadequate control conditions, and currently we know little about how gratitude treatments work. In this study, subjects were randomly assigned to one of three daily 1-week treatments: memory placebo, pride 3-blessings, or gratitude 3-blessings. The gratitude 3-blessings treatment significantly outperformed the comparison treatments in enhancing well-being. Moreover, the well-being of those in the gratitude treatment continued to climb after the treatment phase, similar to the findings of Seligman, Steen, Park, and Peterson (2005). We also found that the gratitude treatment enhanced the accessibility of positive memories compared to the comparison treatments. Our results suggest that exercises like the gratitude 3-blessings treatment may train cognitive biases that are salubrious to subjective well-being.

Keywords:

• gratitude
• well-being
• happiness
• depression

Funding

We wish to thank Faculty Grants for Research and Creative Works for providing the funding for this study, and also to Amy Sparrow, Cody Jensen, and Andrew Pereira for their assistance with data coding.

Notes

1. We also conducted more formal regression moderation tests for all of these variables. None of these tests showed significant interactions.