A Powerful,Transformative Practice: Practicing Gratitude in School​(and in Life) to Transform Society in aPost-Pandemic World

Practicing Gratitude in School (and in Life)
to Transform Society in a Post-Pandemic World.
By Giacomo Bono, PhD

As a psychologist interested in how to optimize social development from adolescence to adulthood, I watched with steady dread as societies across the globe shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic just over 20 months ago today. At the time, much of Australia had been burning for over half a year straight, and to me this seemed like a memo from mother nature to humans: “You better get your house in order soon.” So, I started the year with a corny and naïve optimism that 2020 would be a transformative year when we would learn to see ourselves more clearly and start carving a better path forward for society. Why not start with getting climate change under better control? Little did I realize at the time that more memos from mother nature would come. However, could the amount of suffering that so many people around the world would come to endure be harnessed in a positive way? What if the lockdown is a cocoon for society? How can we re-envision ourselves?


My research on gratitude, its development and promotion, and my experience practicing it and having students practice it all point to the power of gratitude to transform humans for the better. And my short answer to these questions is: Yes, we can see and be better if we develop genuine gratitude habits.


The vaccine is now shining a light on the walls of our lockdown cocoon, making it translucent. We could look ahead now. The pandemic memo showed us the fragility of humans and of the American Dream. The inequities that exacerbated the pandemic's impacts in the U.S. have also hobbled too many of us in our pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. The pandemic forced humans to grow some resilience - whether by accommodating to inconveniences, broken plans, lost jobs, lost loved ones or acquaintances, or just by learning to live life despite not knowing what the future holds, making back-up plans, or being patient.  It challenges us to appreciate our humanity more, as part of larger ecosystems, and to reckon with the need to create more sustainable lives and ecosystems. We must now muster the courage to trust each other more and work toward more meaningful goals, each of us in our own way, but together nudging our society to likewise grow and solve the major problems of our time.


This is precisely why gratitude has so much potential right now. When we appreciate the help and support of others, we see higher and reach further, we persist more through challenges; we are guided by hope and a steely drive to use our strengths to contribute to the world and to push others to do the same. At heart, gratitude helps us realize the limitless possibilities of humans. When others put trust, love, courage, and altruism into practice toward us and --we are grateful-- it fires a transcendent purpose in us with unwavering momentum.

​Glendale Youth Covid-19 Relief Program

Restaurants Switching to Pick Up Only

This basic theme has played out in different ways in my research and teaching. Until recently, however, the effectiveness of gratitude interventions was unclear for both adults and youth. Research was finding interventions to essentially be no better than a placebo on one hand, while acknowledging on the other hand, that the different intervention techniques used across studies may not have yielded reliable mental health benefits overall. Meanwhile, some studies found gratitude to be most potent when we express thanks meaningfully to others (benefactors, friends, or relationship partners) verbally or in writing. When I stumbled on a study finding that people have egocentric biases, like concerns about giving thanks being awkward or about recipients not valuing receiving thanks, and that such biases prevent people from sharing thanks with others, I knew my work was on the right path.


I had developed a gratitude curriculum for secondary schools called Thanks! A Strengths-Based Gratitude Curriculum for Tweens and Teens that emphasized various interpersonal and personal gratitude practices (teachers, here some ancillary resources too). And I suspected that intervention practices needed to suit individuals better and be done genuinely, especially for adolescents. After all, people cannot be “forced” to be grateful. They must get outside of their own heads and take a chance on others to cash in on and strengthen their social ties. Through my collaboration with the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, I teamed up with a non-profit called GiveThx. GiveThx had developed a social-media-like web-app for K-12 students and teachers that let users thank each other and reflect gratefully on face-to-face interactions, online interactions in the app, or on their lives in general.

Using my curriculum and the app with two high schools in Oakland, CA, we found that developing a habit of varied, enjoyable practices and personally experiencing their social effects was key. Our intervention approach not only increased gratitude as a personality trait, but it improved every indicator of wellbeing (positive moods, satisfaction with friendships and life in general) and mental health outcomes too (decreased anxiety, negative moods, depression for boys, and perceived stress for girls). We found a way to create opportunities for healthier digital and face-to-face autonomous gratitude practice in high school that supported social connection and personal development.


The power of our approach dawned on me when I had some students form teams and
use these app-mediated practices for a semester-long project last fall. I challenged
teams to use the app with teammates and classmates and to creatively apply app use to
an area of extracurricular life in college. Some teams focused on using GiveThx in a
sports program or in cheer and dance, some in a particular club, and some in Greek
life. What began as an “unusual” collaborative assignment that students reluctantly
initiated with their remote teammates on Zoom, turned into an inspiring and
restorative experience, even as the pandemic and lockdown continued to bare down on
us. The students realized the transformative power of gratitude when it is practiced
genuinely and regularly to get through adversity (like a pandemic) and in pursuit of
important goals (like doing well in a class). We learned that we each have a multitude
of gifts and ideas for changing the world that come out when we get real with each
other, count on each other, and rise to challenges together.

So, as we look ahead and pull through this pandemic, let’s make gratitude part of our new normal. As we ponder our first moves breaking out of our lockdown cocoon, I challenge you to step out of your comfort zone and practice gratitude genuinely, in ever new ways, and toward a growing sphere of people. You'll be surprised to see how much people care, how resourceful or creative people can be; and you'll be inspired by the breadth and depth of so many beautiful stories you discover.  A new human contract is near -- one where we work together in more harmony with the earth -- and you now have some tools to be part of the solution to the many problems our society faces. Our world depends on our imagination, cooperation, and resolve. Let’s spread our wings gratefully now and grow a better world together.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Giacomo Bono is an Associate Professor of Psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He has a Ph.D. in Applied Social Psychology from Claremont Graduate University. His research focuses on forgiveness, gratitude, well-being, health promotion, and youth development. Dr. Bono is co-author of Making Grateful Kids: The Science of Building Character (2015) and director of the Youth Gratitude Project – a research program that develops assessment tools, examines youths’ social emotional skills and wellbeing, and provides curriculum resources and research support to promote student success and wellness in primary and secondary schools.

Giacomo Bono:  Where to find more info about him
 https://www.csudh.edu/psychology/faculty-staff/giacomo-bono

Learn More About "Making Grateful Kids" Book
https://www.templetonpress.org/books/making-grateful-kids