It’s fairly well established that showing appreciation for a job well done is one of the most effective ways of boosting morale at work.  If any further evidence is required however, a recent study from the University of Texas at Austin provides it.

The study asked participants to write a simple letter of gratitude to someone who has done nice things for them in the past, before then anticipating the response once the recipient receives the letter.  Interestingly, across each of the three experiments, participants thought that recipients would feel a lot more awkward about receiving the letter than they actually did, whilst underestimating the positive impact it would have.

“We looked at what’s correlating with people’s likelihood of expressing gratitude — what drives those choices — and what we found is that predictions or expectations of that awkwardness, that anticipation of how a recipient would feel — those are the things that matter when people are deciding whether to express gratitude or not,” the authors explain.

The courage to give thanks

The researchers believe this anxiety stems from worry that our gesture may be misinterpreted, which thus prompts us to shy away from making it.

“I don’t think it’s a societal thing,” they explain “It’s more fundamental to how the human mind works and a well-established symmetry about how we evaluate ourselves and other people. When we’re thinking about ourselves, we tend to think about how competent we are, and whether we are going to be articulate in how we’re expressing gratitude.”

The researchers hope that their findings prompt more of us to overcome our fear of giving thanks and to do so more often.  Doing so generally only takes a couple of minutes, but thoughtful and sincere thanks can have profound benefits to both giver and receiver alike.