Gratitude
The warm appreciation felt when someone benefits you.
What it means
Gratitude is a positive moral emotion experienced when one recognizes that another agent has intentionally provided a benefit, often at some cost, and it can extend more broadly to appreciation for the good in one's life. As a moral emotion it serves several functions: it acts as a barometer that registers a gift received, a motivator that prompts repayment and prosocial behavior, and a reinforcer that encourages benefactors to give again. Gratitude strengthens social bonds and is one of the most reliably effective targets of positive-psychology interventions, with practices like gratitude journaling and letters improving well-being. Its benefits are thought to flow partly from how it broadens attention toward the positive and counters adaptation. It overlaps with indebtedness but is more pleasant and less coercive.
Examples
After a mentor spends a weekend helping you prepare, you feel grateful, thank her sincerely, and look for ways to support her in return.
Writing down three good things each evening for a fortnight tends to lift mood more than listing three hassles, steering attention back to what adaptation had quietly made invisible.
A neighbour drives you to hospital at midnight. Your thanks, felt and clearly shown, is much of why he offers again next time — gratitude rewards the giver as well as you.
First described in Robert Emmons & Michael McCullough (2003); find-remind-bind theory, Algoe.