Is there a dark side to gratitude? | Health and wellness

TThe word “gratitude” is everywhere these days. On mental health leaflets and in magazine columns, emblazoned on mugs and motivational posters. All of this is the result of more than two decades of research in positive psychology that has found that having a “gratitude practice” (the habit of writing down three to five things you’re grateful for on most days) brings a range of psychological and physical benefits.

I don’t want to seem, well, ungrateful. I’m a skeptical historian, but even I have been persuaded to practice the habit of gratitude, and when I remember to do it, I feel better: more cheerful and connected, and more inclined to see the good already in my life. Counting your blessings, whether it’s noticing a beautiful sunset or remembering how your neighbor went out of their way to help you earlier, is free and engagingly simple. But there’s the problem. In our eagerness to embrace gratitude as a cure-all, have we lost sight of its complexity and limitations?

In positive psychology circles, gratitude is generally defined as a perfectly good thing, a spontaneous feeling of joyful appreciation. But in 1923, Harvard psychologist William McDougall believed that gratitude—especially when it is directed toward another person, rather than experienced in a more abstract way, for example, being “grateful to be alive”—was much more complex. Yes, there was awe at the generosity of the human spirit, and tender feelings for the person who gave up his time to help. But there were also quiet feelings of envy or embarrassment, a sense of the helper’s “superior power” and even what he called “negative self-feeling” that today we call “low self-esteem.” Japanese expression arigata-meiwaku (Literally: “thank you, annoying”) Gets to the heart of what he meant. Arigata Miwako It’s the feeling you get when someone insists on doing you a favor, even though you don’t want them to, but tradition dictates that you should be grateful anyway. There’s a reason why all of this is so upsetting: Feeling grateful upsets the balance of power and increases feelings of obligation. There is your benefactor above, bathed in the glow of the sun of generosity. And here you are, down there, taking off your hat.

It may seem cheesy to focus on how gratitude can also bind, belittle, or confuse us. But as #feelingblessed becomes a performative norm, understanding these aspects of gratitude is even more important, especially for the role they play in how we reinforce hierarchies in our world. One of the most depressing tales of forced gratitude I’ve read is that of 13-year-old orphan Iwo Ekpenyon Iwo II. In 1893, he traveled from his home in British-occupied West Africa to take up a scholarship to a missionary school in Colwyn Bay, Wales. Less than six months after his arrival, Io wrote to his sponsor, expressing his thanks but pleading to return home. The cold weather had made him ill, and he feared for his life, a reasonable concern because three West African schoolchildren had already died at Colwyn Bay.

Eventually, Eo was able to secure her return home, but not before the British press got the story. In a fierce outburst, they called him “spoiled,” “ungrateful,” and “the little prince,” their language imbued with colonial assumptions about who should feel grateful to whom. Not much has changed. In her book The Ungrateful Refugee, author Dina Neri describes how, as a child refugee from Iran, she was expected to feel “so lucky, so humbled” to be in the United States. It was only later that she understood how this “politics of gratitude” had subtly transformed her human right to asylum into a gift, to be repaid by remaining submissive and uncomplaining, being a “good immigrant” who stayed in her lane.

This connection between strength and demanding gratitude reaches into many parts of life. When people in high-ranking positions feel insecure, for example by pointing out their failures, they usually berate those they consider inferior to them for being ungrateful. It was hard not to think about this when Donald Trump and J.D. Vance berated Volodymyr Zelensky for failing to show sufficient gratitude earlier this year (or in 2023, when then-UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace made a similar request).

These costs are part of what psychologists now call the “dark side” of gratitude. One common objection to the gratitude movement is that it risks “toxic positivity,” which encourages people to ignore and suppress more painful feelings. But feeling grateful can lead to other risks, too. People are more likely to violate moral rules on someone else’s behalf if they feel grateful to them. Members of historically marginalized groups, including women and LGBTQ+ people, are less likely to complain about unfair treatment if they are first reminded of how fortunate they are compared to the past. As studies of women in abusive relationships show, when people are tempted to believe they cannot survive without an abuser, gratitude makes them feel obligated to stay. Should all coffee cups and motivational posters come with health warnings?

That’s a lot to think about as you try to write down three things you’re grateful for so you can fall asleep. But I don’t think we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Lessons from the latest research remind us that gratitude, like all emotions, is neither entirely good nor entirely bad. Too little, and we risk coming across as entitled or rude, alienating those who are trying to help us. Too much, and we may leave ourselves vulnerable to exploitation by exaggerating the power someone has over us. Context, as always, is everything.

There are strategies that help mitigate risks. Focus on circumstances rather than individuals (general gratitude). to or Whichinstead of gratitude to) can avoid the issue of authority. And if you notice that your boss, parent, friend, or partner expects more gratitude from you than you’re willing to give, you might ask yourself why. What may seem like ungrateful behavior in our hierarchical world may actually be an act of self-preservation, even political defiance (“How can you thank a man for giving you what is already yours?” said Malcolm X).

And sometimes gratitude needs an expiration date. When I spoke to artist Brian Lobel, who suffered from cancer as a young man and now creates rituals for others as they transition into life after cancer, he said, “For all the gratitude we feel, sometimes we have to unburden ourselves, to move forward with our lives.” Gratitude is important. But also paying attention to its limits. Feeling better? You can thank me later.

Tiffany Watt Smith is a historian and author of The Bad Friend: A Century of Revolutionary Friendships (Faber).

Further reading

The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Neri (Canongate, £10.99)

‘Smile or Die’ by Barbara Ehrenreich (Granta, £10.99)

Toxic Positivity by Whitney Goodman (Orion, £14.99)