Today, we received word that dr. Lilian Jans-Beken will be presenting about Existential Gratitude at the annual conference of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies. The conference will be held at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, from 25 to 28 of August, 2020. We are very pleased with this scientific representation of the Thriving Human Science Center and the presentation of our research on Existential Gratitude.
In research, it is not common to ask people bluntly whether they feel individualistic or selfish. But other human values and characteristics are known to be related to gratitude, individualism, and selfishness. For example, gratitude cannot go together with materialism, gratitude lets us focus on the other, and religious people are more grateful. Perhaps we can find an answer about the current degree of selfishness and individualism, and whether we are still grateful, by focusing on these other values and characteristics.
Egoism
I started my search for an answer on the website of the European Social Survey (ESS). The ESS is a cross-cultural study that is conducted annually in around 20 European countries. They make their data publicly available and it is possible to perform all kinds of analyses directly in the browser. I was able to compare the years 2002 and 2018 with the help of the data. The questionnaire asks the more than 30,000 participants questions about their values such as power, kindness, social contacts and religion. It is known that these values are related to gratitude, but that they can also be an indication of selfishness.
Power
Power is wanting to impose your will on other people, even against their wishes or interests. Gratitude and power have an interesting relationship. Powerful people who feel attacked are more likely to denigrate the other. As soon as the other person expresses gratitude, the powerful person is less inclined to be denigrative. Also, expressing gratitude is seen as paying respect for someone else. And already mentioned, materialism and gratitude do not go together. It is almost impossible to want more stuff and at the same time to be grateful for what you already have. Valuing power could therefore hinder the experience of gratitude.
When asked whether it is important to be rich, and to have money and expensive things, 53% of Dutch people said that this is a little to very important for them. This percentage was 55.4% in 2002 and has therefore remained virtually unchanged in the last 16 years. There were differences in gender and age. Apparently, women and the elderly attach value this more than men and young people. People were also asked whether it is important to receive respect from others. In 2002, 79.4% of the Dutch participants thought that was important, and in 2018 it was 80.2%. Older people believe that receiving respect is more important than young people. Being rich therefore seems to be less crucial than getting respect.
Of the Dutch participants in the ESS, no fewer than 97.5% in 2002 and 99% in 2018 indicated that it is important to help others and to take care of others. Men consider this to be of greater value than women in both 2002 and 2018. Young people consider this more important than the elderly in 2002, but this difference disappeared in 2018. The percentages are also high for loyalty to friends and commitment to loved ones. In 2002, 98.9% of the participants indicated that this was important and in 2018 this was 99%. In both 2002 and 2018, men scored higher than women. In 2002 there is no difference in age, but in 2018 that was the case; the elderly consider loyalty to friends and commitment to loved ones more important than the young. Kindness as a value still seems to be alive and well in the Netherlands.
Social contacts
The ESS questionnaire also asked several questions about social contacts. For example, they asked the participants how often they had contact with friends, family and colleagues. In 2002, 90.4% of Dutch people said they had social contact with friends, family and colleagues at least once a month; in 2018 that was 93.1%. Young people and women have more social contacts than older people and men. Most of the Dutch people have at least one person to discuss personal and intimate topics with. In 2002 it was 93.2% and in 2018 it was 94.4%. The elderly and women have more people to share their concerns with than young people and men. Regular contact with other people seems to be the norm among the Dutch participants.
Religion
Gratitude and religion are inextricably linked. Gratitude plays a central role in all philosophies of life and is regularly mentioned in texts and services. In the Netherlands, we saw a decrease in the number of people who consider themselves to be religious for years. The ESS also asks about the religiosity of the participants. In 2002, 56.3% of the Dutch population indicated that they did not belong to a religion. Only 21.2% of those who do believe went to a service at least once a month outside of the special religious days such as Christmas or Eid. In 2018, the percentage of non-religious Dutch had already risen to 68.7%. Of the people who said they are religious, only 14.5% go to a service outside the special religious days. With the disappearance of religion and the religious community, a place where gratitude is mentioned on a regular basis disappears.
Values of the Dutch participants based on the data of the ESS
The figures from the EES already showed that the influence of religion and the church has virtually disappeared from the Netherlands. People are less religious and of the people who do believe, only a small group go to a prayer house. Marriage too loses its self-evidence. Fewer and fewer people are getting married and the number of people living alone has never been so high in 2016 with 38%. The obvious connections with others seems to be slowly disappearing from our society.
Freedom of choice
More common is the growing emphasis on being unique. This is reflected, for example, in the first names of children. More and more children have unique and sometimes self-invented names in the Netherlands. Another development regarding wanting to be unique is the increase in piercings and tattoos in the Netherlands. By applying decorations to the body, people want to distinguish themselves from others. And in the past, marriage used to be an economic entity in which you did everything together. Nowadays, we want both partners to be financially independent. We value it when people want to be autonomous and unique.
Social connections
We have already seen that most people in the Netherlands have regular contact with others. People are also often members of associations; about three-quarters of the Dutch are members of some association or club. Nowadays, contact is not only taking place in real life, but social interaction also takes place via the internet. Dating over the internet is extremely popular and the internet is ranked fourth as a place to find a romantic partner. Only 2% of the cohabiting couples had met on the internet in 2003, in 2008 this was 10% and in 2013 already 13%. People still have many social contacts and digitization has added a new dimension.
More selfishness and individualism?
So, can we say there is now more selfishness and individualism than in the past? The values associated with selfishness and gratitude do not seem to have changed over the last 16 years. Encouragingly, high percentages are related to kindness. We apparently still have an eye for the other. Due to the digitization and the disappearance of institutions that ensured solidarity and engagement, there seems to have been more emphasis on independence and being unique. On the other hand, we see that the Dutch still have many contacts, but we are increasingly less part of a large demarcated group within society. Because of this, people feel that they are being thrown back on themselves and are trying to take care alone. Fortunately, I cannot conclude that there is more selfishness, but there seems to be an increasing emphasis on the individual who has to find a new way to be connected to others.
Conclusion
Are we still grateful? That was the question with which this article started. There are several points that stand out in the foregoing. People still find it important to pay attention to other people and most people also have a lot of contact with others. So, there are enough options to express and receive gratitude. On the other hand, an important place has disappeared where gratitude played a central role: the church. Because of this, the word “gratitude” may have disappeared from our daily lives. And if you barely or ever get in touch with the term, you do not know enough what it means and that in turn does not motivate you to be grateful.
I therefore think that we must first make a distinction between being grateful, being ingrateful and being ungrateful. Being ungrateful means that someone has the feeling that they are entitled to something. Being grateful is the realization that someone has given or done something valuable. Being ingrateful arises if you do not know that gratitude exists, how it feels and how you can express it. I think that people are increasingly ingrateful because they do know little about gratitude. They simply do not encounter it enough. As soon as we ensure that people’s eye falls on gratitude, more people will be able to be thankful again. Let’s get started!
At the time that I was an assistant professor in Lifespan Psychology at the Open University Netherlands, I mentored student Esther Frinking with her master’s thesis on the association between gratitude, psychological flexibility, engaged living, and loneliness. The results we found were very interesting, so I suggested to her and the Lifespan Psychology department to submit it in an adapted form for publication in a scientific journal. Everyone agreed on this proposal and I guided her through this writing and submitting proces. The colleagues from the Lifespan Psychology department helped with the final submission phase. The article Gratitude and loneliness in adults over 40 years: examining the role of psychological flexibility and engaged livinghas now been published in Aging & Mental Health. Esther and I are very proud of our accomplishment! We are grateful for the opportunity and the help we have received.
Anxious, furious, angry, insecure. These are negative emotions that people experience when faced with danger or setback in their lives. These emotions narrow the attention to the threatening situation. It motivates someone to face the situation or to run away. Therefore, negative emotions ensure that we can deal with problems in life in a proper way. It is clear why humans developed negative emotions during evolution; they helped to survive in a dangerous environment.
Betty van Engelen
Positive emotions
Grateful, happy, surprised, happy. These are some of the positive emotions that people can experience. Apparently, these emotions have been useful also during evolution, otherwise they would have disappeared over time. People experience positive emotions in times of peace and abundance. These emotions cause people to broaden their attention on everything and everyone around us. As a result, they develop skills that will come in handy later when they are in danger. This is called the broaden-and-build theory.
Broaden-and-build theory
In ancient times, when humans were living in caves, positive emotions were also very important. Because of these positive emotions, people started exploring the environment, experimenting with materials, and making contact with other people. This gave them a map in their head with hiding places and food sources. They discovered how they could make leather and protect themselves against the rain and cold. Contact with other people promoted the ability to collaborate and increase the chance of survival in the event of acute danger.
Gratitude
Gratitude is a positive emotion that also proved to be useful. Gratitude creates social bonds with other people which can come in handy in the future. Someone wants to “repay” his benefactor if the opportunity arises. By keeping this in mind, the other remains in the picture. These social relationships are very important to work together, and to cope with the difficulties in life.
Another skill that develops through gratitude is creativity. If someone wants to pay something back, it is not simply giving back the same as what was received. That would be called borrowing. No, someone wants to give something back that the other person needs. So, creativity is needed to get as original as possible. Creativity can later help to approach and solve setbacks in a different way.
Useful emotions
In my opinion, the words “negative” and “positive” are not very well chosen for practice. Negative emotions are important tools in certain situations, and positive emotions can be negative in other situations. Of course, negative emotions are not pleasant to feel, but they do motivate action to solve a problem. And if someone is dealing with an unpleasant or sad situation, then joy or enthusiasm can be awkward. It is therefore important for science to distinguish between negative and positive emotions, but let’s consider all emotions useful in daily practice.
While Thanksgiving is, in part, about eating our body weight in turkey and mashed potatoes, it’s also about giving thanks. In mark of the occasion, we ask Dr Lilian Jans-Beken, an expert in the field of gratitude, to share with us five ways we can practice giving thanks — not just on 28 November, but each and every day.
Why is it important? ‘Gratitude is associated with improving one’s mental health because of the tendency to look for good in all kinds of situations, including adversity, which strengthens our resilience,’ explains Dr Jans-Beken. ‘Through the reciprocity of gratitude, we also become more connected to people around us, and science shows that social support is very important to attain and maintain overall well-being.’
So what are Dr Jans-Beken’s top five ways?
1. The gratitude bracelet
‘If you want to start with feeling grateful more often, you have to make sure that you’re reminded of your intention regularly. You can do this by wearing a bracelet with large beads or a pendant that gets in your way during the day. Every time you feel the bracelet, you can remind yourself to be grateful for something at that time.’
2. The gratitude journal
‘This is the best-known method. Write down three to five things every day that you were grateful for that day, even when your day didn’t go well. And don’t only write down what you’re grateful for but also why you’re grateful for it. You can do this at any time of the day, in the morning or at night, whenever suits your schedule best.’
3. The gratitude letter
‘Is there someone in your life that was or is important in what you’ve achieved? Don’t wait until their funeral to thank them — do it here and now! Write them a letter and let them know that you’re grateful for them, or, even better, read the letter out loud to them. This will guarantee a boost in happiness.’
4. The gratitude wall
‘This is a technique for families, friends or teams. Take a designated piece of wall in your house, the gym or the office, and make post-it notes and pens available. Have everyone write down their gratitudes, put them on the wall and leave them there. Everyone is allowed to keep adding notes and grow the gratitude wall in this way.’
5. Not ‘sorry’ but ’thank you’
‘We do tend to say “sorry” quite a lot, but think about it for a minute; sorry is all about yourself and what you’ve done wrong. For example, we say “sorry I’m late” when we don’t arrive at the agreed time. Instead, try saying “thank you for waiting” and make it about the other person. This makes a shift in the atmosphere immediately because of the appreciation of the other.’
We should be happy all the time. The happiness industry, with a turnover of millions, tells us that if we do this or don’t do that, we will become happy. We live in a world where individualism reigns and we are considered to be primarily responsible for our own happiness. Yet more and more young people are depressed or suffer from a burnout. And worldwide, suicide rates are still high with almost 17,000 persons in 2016 that took their own lives; that’s 47 people a day across the globe… Can gratitude help us?
What is gratitude?
Let me start by telling a bit about what gratitude is. Gratitude is a positive emotion that arises when we realize that we have received something that we needed. Someone saw that we lacked something and invested time, energy, or money to help us out. Only when we are genuinely aware of this help, do we experience gratitude. If we are not aware of it, we do not feel grateful and people call us ungrateful. Then why do people help others when they run the risk that their efforts are not appreciated? According to Darwin, people help others because they hope they will receive help themselves in the future if they need it.
Gratitude to God
People can give thanks to God, the universe, nature, the cosmos. In all religions and philosophies of the world, gratitude plays an important role. For my book, I interviewed two people who spoke very openly about their gratitude to God and what it has brought them. They showed me that people who believe in a God have an image of a leader, a caregiver or a protector. This God understands their shortcomings and will assist them in prosperity and adversity. People who do not believe in a God sometimes attribute these attributes to a supernatural world or spiritual beings. In both cases, people can be grateful for the support they experience from these higher powers.
Other emotions
Of course, we do not experience gratitude as the only emotion when we have received something. Gratitude goes together with other positive emotions such as joy, relief or satisfaction. But negative emotions also go together with gratitude. For example, we may feel indebted to the other person, so we want to give them something back. We prefer to give something different back in return to what we have had and use our creativity to achieve that. We will keep a close eye on whether the other person needs something, and we will return the favor as soon as the opportunity arises.
Glue
Let me summarize it: the benefactor hopes that help lies ahead, and the recipient wants to give something back to the benefactor in the future. This mutual expectation and intention create a bond between people. Gratitude is like glue in social relationships. The interesting part is that we don’t just want to give something back to the one person who did something for us. The feeling of gratitude also means that we want to mean something to other people. As someone in my book puts it so nicely: “gratitude activates”. In this way there is a connection between many people around us.
It is now clear that gratitude creates an invisible bond between people. Other people are incredibly important to us, for example when we are sick, experiencing stress, or feeling lonely. Attention and help from friends and family contributes to our happiness. We feel seen, supported, loved and appreciated. In my book, many people say that their gratitude has strengthened the bond with the loved ones who have supported them in a dark period in their life. One man had a clear message for the reader: “Dare to be grateful and keep an eye on the people around you.”
How to practice gratitude
How can we do that? Being aware of gratitude can be done with the help of a gratitude journal. Make a list of three to five things every day where you were thankful for. Look for positive experiences and the help of others that day. Do this all days but especially on the days when things didn’t go so well; bad things happen, and negative emotions are part of that. Gratitude can help to keep an overview by also looking at positive things in the whole ordeal or you can draw lessons from the unpleasant event for the future.
Sometimes people feel negative about gratitude because they always had to be thankful because of their faith. I can imagine that it is difficult to be thankful in that case. My advice to them is to not use the word “gratitude” but the word “happy”. Not: “I am grateful for my mother’s cooking skills”, but “I am happy that my mother cooks for me every day”. The burdened word disappears, but attention is still paid to people who helped and things that went well that day.
Gratitude makes us happier
Can gratitude help us to be happier? I certainly think that gratitude can contribute to our happiness. It does not do this directly, but indirectly: thanks to gratitude we feel more connected to the people around us. Don’t wait for help but feel free to ask because people really want to help others. In this way we can initiate this mutual gratitude ourselves with all people around us and that will ultimately make us happier, because we are only happy together.
In 2017, dr. Lilian Jans-Beken started the peer review course at the Publons Academy. This is a free peer review training course for early career researchers, developed together with expert academics and editors, to teach the core competencies of peer reviewing. What happened next, can be read in the interview with dr. Lilian Jans-Beken on the Publons website.
For years, psychology was dominated by the idea that people were “broken” and that they had to be “fixed”. So, psychologists did research into psychosis, depression, and anxiety, among other things. As a result, clinical psychology has yielded many valuable insights for the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. There was some attention for positive characteristics of humans, but they did not gain the upper hand.
Betty van Engelen
Positive psychology
Around the turn of the century a clear counter-movement emerged: positive psychology. Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi ¹ laid the foundation for this new science that focused on positive experience, positive individual traits, and a positive society. They argued that by focusing on the positive, the quality of life improves and thus problems with mental health are prevented.
Critique
In recent decades, this branch of psychology has also provided a wealth of knowledge about resilience, post-traumatic growth, strengths, positive emotions, and thriving. But positive psychology is also criticized. The most important objection is that an exclusive look at only the positive in life can result in conscious or unconscious pressure for people who are confronted with setbacks in their lives and therefore do not feel happy at all ².
Robert Emmons ³, one of the pioneers of gratitude research, also acknowledges that life is not just happiness and pleasure, but that people face disappointments, frustrations, loss, pain, setbacks and sadness. Denying this is unrealistic and untenable. Life is suffering and only looking at the good or the positive cannot change this truth.
Although the search for happiness goes hand in hand with flourishing, it is possible to be too happy, to be happy at the wrong time, to pursue happiness in the wrong ways, or to experience the wrong kind of happiness. 4. Also negative emotions are not only bad and good emotions only good. Negative emotions also have their good and useful sides, and positive emotions can also feel annoying or hurtful 5.
New insights
Therefore, it was important to abandon the black-and-white thinking of clinical and positive psychology. Paul T.P. Wong 6 suggested to look at personal experiences, based on dialectical principles. Yin and Yang is a good example of this; one cannot exist without the other. There are always two opposing forces that can be found everywhere in life.
This is the nuanced and balanced understanding of the dialectical nature of PP 2.0 that focuses on a dynamic interaction between the positive and the negative of human well-being 7. Every person has light and dark sides, positive and negative emotions. Every person must deal with setbacks. PP 2.0 examines how people can embrace these setbacks and thrive.
Humans all over the world face overwhelming threats, but also, threats on a smaller scale. Coping with adversities can be very challenging. To do so, people need the psychological ability to deal flexibly with the encountered obstacles, to invest in those things that are meaningful to them, and to accept what cannot be changed in the course of life. A pathway to psychological flexibility and post-traumatic growth can be the virtue of existential gratitude, which is referring to being grateful for suffering as a blessing in disguise and an opportunity to grow. Virtues are personal qualities that reflect moral excellence, and they are considered the foundations for a good and meaningful life.
In this symposium, we focus on virtues that are fundamental to existential gratitude: humility, hope, gratitude, forgiveness, courage, and spirituality. Humility is the strength of an accurate view of oneself, teachability and appreciation of others (Nielsen & Marrone, 2018). Hope motivates people to direct energy towards a certain goal or future, and planning all that is needed to meet these end states (Edwards, Rand, Lopez, & Snyder, 2007). Gratitude is a life orientation towards noticing and appreciating the positive in life (Wood, Froh, & Geraghty, 2010). Forgiveness is the human strength to replace emotions such as anger, fear, hurt, and bitterness with emotions such as peace, love, and joy when dealing with someone hurtful (Toussaint & Friedman, 2009). Courage is the strength to embrace the dark side of human existence and to make positive changes in our own lives (Wong, 2019). Spirituality is a natural disposition to belief in a higher power or supernatural world that supports an individual’s ability to handle challenges of life (Ramsey, 2012). These virtues, and perhaps others, are thought to be cornerstones of existential gratitude. They interact in a dialectical and dynamical way to support the psychological flexibility to be thankful for all that has happened in life, both good and bad. Together, they strengthen individuals and encourages them to grow after adversity and thrive.
Dr. Lilian Jans-Beken will be organizing this symposium during the Meaning Conference in Toronto which is held from July 30 to August 2, 2020. She is looking for additional papers to be presented during this event. If your research matches the topic of the symposium, and you are willing to travel to Toronto CA next year, please submit you abstract with the form below before January 15, 2020. Details about the conference — venue, speakers, fees — can be found on the website of the International Network on Personal Meaning.
Please forward this message to any person that might be interested in participating in this symposium. The program is preliminary, and women and POC are approached to be invited as keynote speaker.
Abstract Submission
Literature
Edwards, L., Rand, K. L., Lopez, S. J., & Snyder, C. R. (2007). Understanding hope: A review of measurement and construct validity research.
Nielsen, R., & Marrone, J. A. (2018). Humility: Our Current Understanding of the Construct and its Role in Organizations. International Journal of Management Reviews, 20(4), 805–824. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12160
Ramsey, J. L. (2012). Spirituality and aging: Cognitive, affective, and relational pathways to resiliency. Annual Review of Gerontology & Geriatrics, 32, 131.
Toussaint, L., & Friedman, P. (2009). Forgiveness, gratitude, and well-being: The mediating role of affect and beliefs. Journal of Happiness Studies, 10(6), 635–654.
Wong, P. T. P. (2019, May 14). The positive education of character building: CasMac. Retrieved from http://www.drpaulwong.com/the-positive-education-of-character-building-casmac/
Wood, A. M., Froh, J. J., & Geraghty, A. W. A. (2010). Gratitude and well-being: A review and theoretical integration. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 890–905. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2010.03.005
