Gratitude and positive psychology
Gratitude is something worth studying if you ask Laurie Anderson, a psychology instructor at the College of St. Scholastica.
Gratitude is something worth studying if you ask Laurie Anderson, a psychology instructor at the College of St. Scholastica.
She teaches two study abroad courses, one of which brought 39 students to Denmark to learn about the Science of Happiness.
While research is still diving into the psychophysiological benefits, it does appear that grateful people are generally higher in physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being. Some research from 2019 shows that seems to be true across all cultures.
However, there are factors that can interfere with feelings of gratitude, such as:
- Money, time, stress, and pressure
- Busy society
- Social media distractions
- Materialism
Anderson says the benefits are worth the effort. Grateful people:
- are more alert and have more determination
- move toward goals
- help others more
- have more life satisfaction
- have less negative affect
- feel more positive about work and school
- problem solve better
- have emotional closure to bad events
Her spring study abroad students wrote a blog about what they learned.