Category: Gratitude

Neuroscientists have gained insights into how gratitude operates from an unexpected source.

Gratitude can be extraordinarily beneficial to the mind.

It can increase wellbeing and health, as well as bolster relationships (see: 10 Ways Gratitude Can Change Your Life).

Now neuroscientists have gained insights into how gratitude operates from an unexpected source.

The testimonies of Holocaust survivors have been used to track gratitude in the brain.

Dr Glenn Fox, who led the study, said:

“In the midst of this awful tragedy, there were many acts of bravery and life-saving aid.

With the Holocaust, we only typically associate the awful things.

But when you listen to the survivors, you also hear stories of incredible virtue, and gratitude for the help they received.”

For the research 23 people who had no connection to the Holocaust were shown Holocaust survivors’ testimonies.

These briefly explained how Nazism and the persecution arose, about the Internment, the Final Solution and the Liberation.

People in the study were then given stories to read, while imagining they were the survivors.

These encouraged participants to think about typical acts of kindness that occurred, such as:

“You have been sick for weeks.

A prisoner who is a doctor finds medicine and saves your life.”

With brain scans, the neuroscientists were able to track the circuits involved in gratitude.

Researchers found that the areas activated included those processing reward, fairness, moral cognition and self-reference.

These include the ventral- and dorsal- medial pre-frontal cortex, as well as the anterior cingulate cortex.

Dr Stephen Smith, USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director, said:

“When they gave testimony to USC Shoah Foundation many Holocaust survivors told us that they found reason to be grateful, whether it was because of a stranger offering a bit of food or a neighbor providing a place to hide.

These small acts of generosity helped them hold on to their humanity.

That Glenn has been able to use testimonies in his incredible research on gratitude shows why it is so important to preserve the voices of people who lived through these dark times.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Fox et al., 2015).

• Read on: 10 Ways Gratitude Can Change Your Life

Everett Historical / Shutterstock.com

Healthier hearts aren’t just about diet and exercise, the mind can help too.

Being grateful helps patients recover from heart failure, a new study finds.

On top, two previous studies have found that optimistic people have healthier hearts and that a strong sense of purpose may lower heart disease risk.

In the new study, Dr Paul J. Mills and colleagues studied how gratefulness affected people suffering from asymptomatic heart failure.

He said:

“We found that more gratitude in these patients was associated with better mood, better sleep, less fatigue and lower levels of inflammatory biomarkers related to cardiac health.”

The study looked at people who had developed a heart problem — like having a heart attack — but who did not have other typical symptoms (shortness of breath or fatigue).

The researchers wanted to see what could help them avoid getting worse.

Once heart disease develops symptoms, the chances of death are five times higher.

So the researchers asked patients about their spiritual well-being and how grateful they were in everyday life.

Gratefulness involves noticing and appreciating the positive aspects of your life.

Dr Mills said:

“We found that spiritual well-being was associated with better mood and sleep, but it was the gratitude aspect of spirituality that accounted for those effects, not spirituality per se.”

Some heart patients were specifically asked to write down three things they were grateful for each day.

They did this most days over a period of eight weeks.

Dr Mills explained the results:

“We found that those patients who kept gratitude journals for those eight weeks showed reductions in circulating levels of several important inflammatory biomarkers, as well as an increase in heart rate variability while they wrote.

Improved heart rate variability is considered a measure of reduced cardiac risk.

It seems that a more grateful heart is indeed a more healthy heart, and that gratitude journaling is an easy way to support cardiac health.”

The gratitude study was published in the journal Spirituality in Clinical Practice (Mills et al., 2015).

Heart image from Shutterstock

Study asked some commuters to make an effort to speak to strangers, while others sat in solitude.

There are two unwritten rules on public transport: don’t talk and don’t make eye contact.

Everyone has a scare-story about the results of opening up and talking to strangers.

There’s the one about the guy who treats a polite hello as permission to spew out his whole life-story or the woman who looks personally offended and turns her back.

Especially when commuting with others on public transport, it often seems to safer to stay in your bubble of solitude.

Are we right to be quite so wary, though?

According to a new study by shunning the company of strangers we could be missing out on a vital little lift to our day (Epley & Schroeder, 2014).

Across nine separate experiments, researchers at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, asked ordinary commuters on public transport to either:

• do their commute as normal,
• make an effort to talk to a stranger,
• or sit in solitude.

Despite predicting that talking to strangers would be the least pleasant experience, when commuters were asked afterwards, it actually turned out to be the most pleasant experience.

One of the study’s authors, Professor Nicholas Epley, explained:

“Connecting with strangers on a train may not bring the same long-term benefits as connecting with friends, but commuters on a train into downtown Chicago reported a significantly more positive commute when they connected with a stranger than when they sat in solitude.”

The fact that this was the opposite of what they expected is fascinating. Epley continued:

“This misunderstanding is particularly unfortunate for a person’s well-being given that commuting is consistently reported to be one of the least pleasant experiences in the average person’s day.

This experiment suggests that a surprising antidote for an otherwise unpleasant experience could be sitting very close by.”

Why it’s good for you to be civil

The authors conclude by saying:

“Being civil toward distant others or random strangers is typically believed to benefit others—society at large or those who are befriended.

The results of our experiments, however, join a growing body of research suggesting positive consequences of prosociality for oneself.

Whether it is spending money on others versus oneself, behaving equitably rather than selfishly, or expressing gratitude versus disdain, prosociality seems not only to benefit others but also to benefit oneself.

On an increasingly crowded planet, misunderstanding the benefits of social engagement could be increasingly problematic.

At least in this respect, the hedonist who seeks happiness and the idealist who seeks civility should choose the same path.” (Epley & Schroeder, 2014).

Image credit: Lily Furedi

One of the greatest challenges to achieving happiness through gratitude is routine, familiarity and habit. We behave as if the things we enjoy now – health, job, family and friends – will continue forever, despite knowing it’s impossible. Usually only a change of some kind really captures our attention.

Continue reading “Gratitude Enhanced by Focusing on End of Pleasurable Experience”

This post explains how to use the results of the survey of your character strengths.

You may like to have your character strengths survey results to hand while thinking about these questions. Head over to the VIA Survey website to recap your strengths, or take the test if you haven’t done so already. This previous post explains the background.

What can I do with my list of strengths?

One common exercise is a discussion of your signature strengths with another person. Talk with someone you trust about which strengths strike you as more authentically associated with yourself. One thing you might discuss or have a think about is:

How do I know when to use which strength?

Sometimes it’s possible to be too courageous, too curious or even too kind. The trick is determining when to use which strength. Try to think of situations in which you’ve used your strengths successfully and times when you’ve used them unsuccessfully. Is there any pattern? If there is, what is this telling you? Schwartz and Sharpe (2005) argue that practical wisdom can only be reached through practice. There’s no substitute for exercising your strengths in the right way, and understanding why.

What if I’m uncomfortable discussing my strengths?

Negative points are easier to spot in others as well as in ourselves. As a result some people find it difficult to talk, or even just think about their strengths. It may also be partly cultural: Americans tend to be more comfortable discussing positivity, whereas other cultures like the British can be turned off by all this ‘happy-clappy’ positivity.

That’s fine, so instead of focusing on the top 5 character strengths, concentrate on the bottom of the list. These are your least strong strengths – I hesitate to say weaknesses because the survey isn’t concerned with rooting out weakness, it’s solely concerned with strengths. Still, those ‘strengths’ are at the bottom of the list for a reason.

Weakness can also be found in strengths if those strengths aren’t used in a balanced way. For example some people take critical thinking to extreme and end up highly cynical, finding it hard to see anything positive in the world. Similarly prudence is a highly admirable character strength, but too much prudence can lead to a boring and isolated life. Recognising the dangers inherent in some strengths can also be beneficial.

Are some character strengths more likely to be seen together in one person?

The strengths can be described on two dimensions: first on whether they are self or other-focused strengths, and second on whether they are strengths of mind or strengths of heart. Self-focused strengths include curiosity, self-regulation and zest, while other-focused strengths include modesty, kindness and forgiveness. Strengths of mind include open-mindedness, self-regulation and modesty, while strengths of heart include gratitude, hope and zest.

People are more likely to have signature strengths that are close on these two dimensions. For example people whose strength is perspective are also likely to have a love of learning. Similarly someone whose strength is kindness is also likely to be particularly forgiving. Do your strengths cluster together in this way, or are they more disparate?

Aren’t the answers I have given in the survey subject to a social desirability bias?

Yes, but that doesn’t mean they’re meaningless. All the questions in the VIA survey ask about positive traits, so there is clearly a bias in the way (most) people will respond. Naturally people tend to see themselves in a relatively positive light and so will tend to answer in the affirmative for most questions. For example, it’s an extremely rare person that says they have no morals or no curiosity at all.

The point with this survey is that as long as the response to every question isn’t exactly the same, then it will reveal something about your character. That variability between ‘very much like me’ and ‘most of the time’ reveals something. Using this variability the survey can work out which traits are most applicable and which least.

More generally, though, why should we only believe others when talking about their deficiencies, but not when point out their strengths?

Give me more ways to think about my strengths!

Certainly. You can think about your strengths in relation to all the major areas of your life:

• Do your signature strengths match up with those used in your job. If not, could you adjust your job so that they do? Or perhaps even change your job?
• How do your strengths fit with those closest to you, e.g. your partner?
• Which strengths give you the most energy when you use them? How could you use them more? How could you use them differently – say in a different context or with different people?
• What hobbies/interests do you have and how do your strengths contribute? Are there other interests you could develop on the basis of your strengths?

Image credit: StockMonkeys.com

A week ago I suggested a simple gratitude exercise as an evidenced-based way of improving your mood over the long term. Research suggests this exercise is beneficial if carried out on a regular basis. So this is your reminder to set aside a couple of minutes today to be thankful for what you’ve got.

Continue reading “Better Mood From Gratitude: 1 Week Reminder”

Take the ‘Values in Action Inventory of Strengths’ survey to identify your character strengths.

The classic question psychologists get asked at parties when they reveal their profession is: “Are you analysing me?” A good answer for any psychologist who wants to be invited to more parties is: “Yes, and I find you to be a wonderful human being!”

This helps underline the fact that stereotypically psychologists are obsessed with deficits and disorders. Just look at the title of the clinical psychologists’ and psychiatrists’ bible, the ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’, also known as ‘the DSM’. Doesn’t sound that warm and cuddly, does it?

To help counter this prevailing tendency towards the negative, psychologists Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman wanted to create an anti-DSM, a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Positive strengths and virtues. Surely it would be useful, they thought, if people could use a questionnaire to identify their strengths as human beings?

Inventory of strengths

What they came up with was the ‘Values in Action Inventory of Strengths’ (VIA-IS) which, in a moment, I’ll suggest you take. But first a bit of background so that you can understand what it means.

To create the VIA, Peterson and Seligman (2005) came up with 6 virtues and 24 strengths. The core virtues are those identified by philosophers, religious thinkers and others as being central to a ‘good character’ – these are the six main headings in the list below. The 24 character strengths, meanwhile, are those characteristics of individuals that contribute towards these virtues. These are listed under the virtue to which they contribute.

• Knowledge (virtue)
  • Creativity (strength)
  • Curiosity
  • Love of learning
  • Perspective (wisdom)
  • Open-mindedness
• Courage (virtue)
  • Bravery (strength)
  • Persistence
  • Integrity
  • Vitality
• Humanity
  • Capacity to love and receive love
  • Kindness
  • Social intelligence
• Justice
  • Citizenship
  • Fairness
  • Leadership
• Temperance
  • Forgiveness/mercy
  • Modesty/humility
  • Prudence
  • Self-regulation
• Transcendence
  • Appreciation of excellence and beauty
  • Gratitude
  • Hope
  • Humour
  • Spirituality

Take the survey

The VIA-IS can be taken for free at http://www.viasurvey.org/, a site run by the VIA institute. You need to register and then the site will save your results so you can always revisit and check your strengths.

Once you have registered with the site, you’ll see there are three different versions: the full survey for adults (240 questions), the full survey for those between 8 and 17 years old (198 questions) and a brief version (24 questions). I’d highly recommend putting in the 15 minutes or so it will take to complete the full survey. While the brief survey is a good indicator, you’ll get much more accurate results from the full survey.

The VIA-IS questionnaire asks you questions that access each of the strengths. It then gives you your top 5 ‘signature strengths’, along with all the other strengths in order, from strongest to weakest. You might be surprised about some of your signature strengths – I certainly was.

More on strengths and virtues

Included in the results is a short description of what each strength means. There is also more information on some of these strengths and virtues on the VIA site – these are linked in the list above. You can also compare your own top 5 strengths to averages obtained by others.

» In the next post: how to use your character strengths.

Image credit: Corie Howell

Use this simple gratitude exercise to put yourself in a better mood in as little as two minutes per week.

Really good moods are like gold dust. They bring optimism, laughter, creativity and sheer joie de vivre. Good moods help us bear all the daily irritations of life with good grace.

Psychological research agrees. Positive emotions are associated with greater creativity, increased problem-solving ability, and greater overall success in life (here’s 9 ways happiness leads to success).

Continue reading “Better Mood from Gratitude: 2 Minute Exercise – Start Now!”

Psychological research finds that people’s happiness levels are remarkably stable over the long-term. Whether you win the lottery or are paralysed from the neck down, after about three to six months you’ll have returned to your usual level of happiness. While these findings are deeply counter-intuitive, they also raise a serious problem for those wanting to increase levels of happiness permanently.

A possible answer comes from recent research in the psychology of gratitude. Yes, you read that correctly – being thankful might be the key to raising your happiness ‘set-point’. And there is some good experimental evidence to back up this theory.

Continue reading “Practicing Gratitude Can Increase Happiness by 25%”