Gratitude interventions can improve mood, optimism, life satisfaction and feelings of social connection across a wide range of cultures, but a major international study suggests that the method used—and the country in which it is practiced—can make a substantial difference. The research, conducted in 34 countries with more than 10,000 participants, tested six gratitude exercises and compared them with three control activities. Its central finding was strikingly consistent: every gratitude intervention produced measurable psychological benefits, although some were far more powerful than others.
The most effective exercise asked participants to write a message to someone they felt grateful toward and send it. This intervention produced the strongest overall improvement in the outcomes measured by the researchers, highlighting the importance of turning an internal emotion into an explicit social action. By contrast, the least effective intervention was also the most familiar: writing a list of five things for which one is grateful. Although gratitude lists remain popular in wellness programs and self-help practices, the results indicate that simply identifying positive experiences may be less influential than communicating appreciation directly to another person.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined changes in several dimensions of subjective well-being. Participants reported increases in positive affect, or the experience of pleasant emotions, alongside reductions in negative affect and envy. The interventions were also associated with greater optimism, life satisfaction and perceived social reciprocity. These outcomes are important because psychological well-being is not limited to momentary happiness. It also includes the expectation that life can improve, a sense that one’s relationships are mutually supportive, and the belief that one is contributing to a meaningful social environment.
Researchers tested several different ways of encouraging gratitude. In addition to sending a gratitude message, participants could write a letter of appreciation without sending it, practice Naikan reflection, or record five events from the previous day for which they felt grateful while imagining life without those experiences. Another exercise involved writing a letter to God, a higher power or a spiritual entity. Naikan reflection is a structured form of self-examination that asks people to consider what they received from others, what they gave in return and how they might provide further help. Together, these exercises allowed the researchers to compare private reflection, spiritual gratitude and explicitly interpersonal forms of appreciation.
All six interventions outperformed the control conditions. Participants in the control groups either answered a questionnaire, wrote generally about a past event or described interesting events from recent days without being directed toward gratitude. This comparison helped the researchers distinguish the effects of gratitude from the effects of simply spending time writing or reflecting. According to Paulo Sérgio Boggio, a psychologist at Mackenzie Presbyterian University and coordinator of Brazil’s National Institute of Science and Technology in Social and Affective Neuroscience, an effective intervention must involve more than merely thinking about something positive. The strongest results emerged when gratitude activated social connection.
That finding is consistent with theories of gratitude as an evolved social emotion. Gratitude is not only a pleasant response to receiving help; it can also influence future behavior. When people recognize another person’s generosity, they may become more willing to assist that person, reciprocate the favor or help someone else. In this way, gratitude may create what researchers describe as an indirect or “upstream” cycle of cooperation. The emotion can strengthen relationships even when the original benefactor is not the person who later receives help.
The international comparison revealed an unexpected degree of cultural variation. Gratitude exercises had their greatest impact in Mexico, while they produced almost no measurable effect in Norway. Brazil occupied an intermediate position. The researchers reported that cultural rigidity or flexibility, power distance and religiosity helped explain differences in the effects of the interventions. These cultural dimensions may shape how comfortable people feel expressing appreciation, how strongly they interpret social obligations and whether gratitude is connected to religious or spiritual beliefs. At the same time, some effects appeared to be broadly universal, particularly the increase in positive feelings following the exercises.
Researchers do not yet know whether the weaker results in countries such as Norway and Japan reflect local social norms or indicate that the interventions were not culturally tailored enough. A practice designed in one cultural environment may fail to produce the same response elsewhere if it conflicts with local expectations about emotional expression, reciprocity or personal independence. In some societies, openly sending a deeply appreciative message may feel unusually intimate or burdensome; in others, it may be a familiar and socially rewarding behavior. Future studies will investigate whether country-specific approaches can produce stronger effects than standardized exercises applied globally.
The Brazilian research team included Boggio and Beatriz Bezerra de Souza, whose master’s research received support from the São Paulo Research Foundation. They worked with an international group of 36 authors, including experimental psychologist Michael McCullough of the University of California, San Diego. In Brazil, 598 volunteers responded to the intervention prompts through an online tool. The project was coordinated by Nicholas Coles of the University of Florida and was designed to address a major limitation in psychological science: the heavy concentration of evidence from Western countries, particularly the United States. Approximately half of published gratitude research has originated in the US, making large cross-cultural studies essential for testing whether widely promoted psychological practices work beyond their original context.
The researchers have made the study’s raw data available through the Open Science Framework, allowing other scientists to examine the results and test additional questions. The findings do not suggest that one gratitude exercise will transform everyone’s mental health, nor do they replace clinical treatment for depression, anxiety or other conditions. They do, however, provide evidence that brief, low-cost practices can produce immediate changes in several aspects of well-being, especially when they involve meaningful social contact. The viral appeal of gratitude may therefore be grounded in more than optimism: the most powerful “thank you” may be the one that leaves the page and reaches another person.
Subject of Research: Gratitude interventions, subjective well-being, social reciprocity and cross-cultural psychology
Article Title: A multinational megastudy of the effects of gratitude practices on subjective well-being
Web References: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2537789123; Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/
References: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.253778912
Keywords: gratitude, positive affect, subjective well-being, social connection, social reciprocity, psychology, cultural differences, gratitude interventions, neuroscience, psychological science
