Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being: Cultivating Gratitude for a Harvest of Happiness

Introduction

The epigraph by Chesterton (1986) suggests that true happiness is not an easy pursuit. Like farming, the cultivation of happiness takes time, focus, and effort—one does not simply slide into happiness. We believe that Chesterton’s agriculture metaphor is effective for understanding the development of subjective well-being (SWB), and in this chapter we will argue that the cultivation of gratitude may be one of the most effective ways of harvesting happiness. In order to accomplish this goal, we first will establish the foundations of a science of gratitude, discussing basic definitions and means of measuring gratitude. We then turn to the focus of the chapter: the good of gratitude, explaining how gratitude is important for human flourishing. If gratitude is important to well-being, it behooves us to understand how gratitude can be cultivated, and we spend considerable space exploring this issue. We will then discuss unresolved issues in gratitude research, and conclude the chapter by showing who benefits most from gratitude interventions. Our goals for this chapter are to describe gratitude, identify needed areas of gratitude research, and show how one may use gratitude to enhance their happiness.