Expressing gratitude to your spouse can go a long way in making your marriage successful.
In a new study, Sara Algoe, UNC-Chapel Hill social psychology professor, observed 47 couples between the ages of 24 and 40 who have been together for an average of five years. Each pair was assigned one of two tasks — to discuss the mundane details of the previous day or to express gratitude toward one another. The conversations were filmed.
Over the course of the next 30 days, Algoe asked each couple to have a similar conversation four to six times. Participants rated the conversation in regard to how responsive they felt their partner was. They also filled out nightly questionnaires that had them complete sentences like “Today our relationship was …” using a one-through-nine scale, one being “terrible” and nine meaning “terrific.”
At the end of the study, the couples returned to the lab for one final observation. In analyzing the questionnaires and face-to-face interviews, Algoe found that people in the expressed gratitude group felt their relationships became stronger, more adaptable to change, and more positive throughout the 30 days than those in the control group. She hopes to use these findings to further explore gratitude in a relationship context.
In other words, saying “thank you” — whether its for taking out the trash or for that pair of diamond earrings — makes for a stronger relationship.