By Jill Suttie, Greater Good Magazine, July 27, 2022
Expressing gratitude nurtures our relationships, helping us to feel closer to our friends and romantic partners. Some research suggests that grateful people seem to cope better with stress and enjoy superior physical health, perhaps because of those stronger social relationships.
What about experiencing gratitude with people we don’t know so well—like, those we work with? Could showing appreciation towards them affect our stress levels on the job? A new study aimed to find out.
The researchers paired up university suitemates who were acquainted but not close, which they thought would mimick the kinds of relationships people have at work (sometimes called “loose ties”). One student in each dyad was designated as the “expresser” and the other as the “receiver,” with some expressers told to start a conversation by sharing something about their day and others sharing something they appreciated about their partner. Some gratitude expressers appreciated small things (like, how a partner ran an errand for them one time) and others appreciated bigger things (like, how a partner switched around a class schedule to accommodate them).
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