"Gratitude Is With Me All the Time": How Gratitude Relates to Wisdom

Abstract

Objectives.This study investigated the relationship of gratitude to wisdom. Both constructs are conceptually related to self-reflectivity, but they differ in their emphasis on extrapersonal resources. Previous wisdom research has focused mainly on intrapersonal capacities.Method.In Study 1, 47 wisdom nominees and 47 control participants were interviewed about their most difficult and best life event and filled out a questionnaire on sources of gratitude. Study 2 was a quantitative study (N = 443) of the relationship between a wisdom scale and scale measures and individual sources of gratitude.Results.Significantly more wisdom nominees expressed feelings of gratitude spontaneously in their interview. Wisdom nominees reported gratitude for their life in general, religion, and partner more often than control participants. In Study 2, wisdom was related to all gratitude scales and to similar sources of gratitude as in Study 1. Both studies found gender differences in gratitude but not wisdom.Discussion.Two important implications of these findings are that wisdom entails an appreciation of life and its experiences, especially the growth opportunities that may result from negative events, and that there may be substantial differences between male and female pathways to wisdom.

Measuring Wisdom: Existing Approaches, Continuing Challenges, and New Developments

“…Arguably, wisdom has long been studied in philosophy, theology, or the historical sciences without a need to assign numbers to individuals and run them through complex statistical analyses. I believe that wisdom research benefits greatly from the use of qualitative methodologies (e.g., Edmondson, 2005 ; Igarashi, Levenson, & Aldwin, in revision) or from combining qualitative and quantitative approaches (e.g., DeMichelis, Ferrari, & Rozin, 2015 ; Glück, Bluck, Baron, & McAdams, 2005 ; König & Glück, 2013 ; Weststrate & Glück, 2017 ). However, reliable and valid measures of wisdom allow us to study complex psychological research questions in larger samples of individuals that could not otherwise be investigated.…”

A Time for Being Thankful: Balanced Time Perspective and Gratitude

“…Regardless of the conceptualization outlined above, being thankful requires subjective assessment of the gift received or the event experienced. If people consider what they have received or undergone beneficial, even if it involves suffering (König & Glück, 2014), they are prompt to feel or show gratitude. By contrast, if they receive something valuable or meaningful but do not judge it accordingly, they remain thankless.…”

“…Likewise, terminally ill patients are often grateful just for being alive, which manifests itself in wasting a smaller amount of time on irrelevant things and in enjoying every moment (Daughtery & Hand, 2009). Middle-aged adults are grateful for the enjoyable circumstances experienced, together with the challenges and difficult lessons that allow them to grow (König & Glück, 2014). Even adolescents seem to be attentive to gratitude and time perspective.…”

The Cultivation of Pure Altruism via Gratitude: A Functional MRI Study of Change with Gratitude Practice

“…Although theoretical treatments of gratitude emphasize its moral quality, much empirical research has focused on the benefits of gratitude to oneself. For example, there is convergent empirical evidence that gratitude is a positive emotion ( Watkins et al, 2003 ; Sheldon and Lyubomirsky, 2006 ; König and Glück, 2014 ; Tong, 2014 ), in contrast to negative emotions like indebtedness or guilt ( Müller et al, 2006 ; Watkins et al, 2006 ). Interventions that focus on gratitude increase positive affect and decrease negative affect ( Emmons and McCullough, 2003 ; Sheldon and Lyubomirsky, 2006 ; Froh et al, 2008 ).…”