Gratitude is a popular topic these days. No doubt Oprah had a lot to do with it.
The Cognitive-Expressive Perspective
For the most part, the current discussion about gratitude comes from the perspective of Positive Psychology and happiness research. Research suggests that when we focus on things to be grateful for, feel grateful, and verbally express it, we feel happier. So, it directs us to think about things to be grateful for, keep a "Gratitude Journal", feel grateful, and say, "Thank you!" often. I call this the cognitive-expressive perspective of gratitude.
The Religious Perspective
Some of the current discussion about gratitude comes from a religious perspective of gratitude. From this perspective God/our Higher Power is the source of everything good in our life. Everything good in our life is a blessing from above. Since every blessing is a gift from above we should feel thankful to God/our Higher Power for all of our blessings and verbally express our thanks.
From the religious perspective there is a sense that the more one recognizes and gives thanks for God’s blessings, the more faithful one is and the better one practices one’s religion.
Commonalities Share by both the Psychological and Religious Perspectives
The psychological and religious perspectives of gratitude share some common characteristics.
Both are individualist. They focus on us as individuals and have us do a private self examination of how grateful we are as individuals.
Both lack a clear standard on how much gratitude is enough. The sense is that we could always be more grateful than we are.
Due to the lack if a standard, both judge us as falling short when it comes to gratitude and direct us to take some initiative to be more grateful than we are.
Both have a moralistic tone. They both say that we ought to be more grateful than we are. The psychological view says we ought to be more grateful in order to improve our mental health. The religious view says we ought to be more grateful in order to relate rightly with God/our Higher Power.
Finally, both offer prescriptions to remedy our short comings in the area of gratitude. They both say, "Be more grateful." Positive Psychologists direct us to journal about we can be grateful for. Religious authorities direct us to say prayers of thanksgiving.
Assessing Both Perspectives
There is certainly nothing wrong with having a grateful attitude and practicing saying, “Thank you!”
However, I do question assigning and restricting gratitude to our head and tongue , the lack of a clear standard of how much gratitude is enough, fault-finding, and using a subtle form of guilt and shame to encourage us to be more grateful.
A Third Perspective
In my next post I'll present a third perspective on gratitude: gratitude as a specific kind of pleasure that we feel.
I very much agree with your observations on both the psychological and religious forms of gratitude. These echo how I have long felt about the practice of gratitude as popularized by Oprah. My own sense is that there is never enough gratitude. Just look at the practice of not only keeping a gratitude journal, but also recording 5 or 10 items per day for which one is grateful. I tried it once upon a time, and grew tired of being grateful each day for my cats and clean laundry. Perhaps I didn't have the proper attitude.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to your next entry that describes more fully another perspective on this.
What you've written so far encourages me to ask how you view and fit in those pieces of our lives for which we are not grateful. There are examples I could offer, though perhaps this is as unique to each of us as what we are grateful for.
Thanks, Sara. I always appreciate your comments. You raise an excellent question about how we fit in those pieces of our lives for which we aren't grateful. That's an excellent question for each one of us to answer for ourselves.
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