Thank you for reading this! How gratitude seems like it might increase meaning, and how meaning is distinct from happiness
October 8, 2010
A recent paper by Adam Grant and Francesca Gino on why gratitude motivates prosocial behavior – behaviour intended to benefit others – discusses four experiments that found that social worth was the mediator.
Firstly, this is building on previous studies that found that being thanked does indeed promote prosocial behavior. This has some fairly straightforward implications for how you live your life and what kind of policies you want to have at your company. Most jobs have something to do with helping other people either directly (e.g., life guards), indirectly (e.g., computer engineers), or within the company (e.g., training underlings). And most people do a lot of interacting with others throughout the day, so there exist ample opportunities to both help and receive help. By thanking someone, they’ll be more inclined to help you or someone else.
This appears to happen because, when people are thanked, they feel more social worth. Grant and Gino also measured self-efficacy and emotions, and neither seemed to account for the prosocial behavior. Being socially valued is pretty close to the consensual definition of meaning – contributing beyond yourself. Gratitude seems like it might be the feedback that you are indeed contributing. Usually, feedback about doing well at something does increase self-efficacy. However, this seems particular to self-worth only. But, why wouldn’t feeling more socially valued increase positive emotions or decrease negative emotions? (In the studies, it seems like it did a little bit, but not significantly.)
This separation of meaning and happiness is consistent with other research (e.g., McGregor & Little, 1998). For instance, Baumeister (1991) has found that parents are, on average, slightly less “happy” than non-parents. However, this is measured by individual emotion and life satisfaction. Not meaning. It seems that parents might get more meaning, but they might also have more stress, leading their scores in subjective well-being to come out a little lower than non-parents.
This leads me to the question: what is meaning? Is it an emotion that we just aren’t measuring in the same bundle as other emotions? I might argue that this is the case, because it seems that it might be motivating. Emotions are originally conceived to be moving – literally to move you. They also may have distinct physiological patterns in the body; Negative emotions seem to have this, though positive emotions so far don’t seem to have such specific patterns. However, you feel something different with each emotion, so there must be something physiological going on. Thus, meaning or social worth must be an emotion that we just don’t have a word for. Maybe?
More on this as it comes. And… thanks for reading!
References:
Baumeister, R.F. (1991). Meanings of life. New York: Guilford Press.
Grant, A. M. & Gino, F. (2010). A little thanks goes a long way; Explaining why gratitude expressions motivate prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98 (6), 946–955.
McGregor, I, & Little, B. R. (1998). Personal projects, happiness, and meaning: On doing well and being yourself. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 494–512.
