Source:Greater Good Science Center
At the 2014 Greater Good Gratitude Summit, Sara B. Algoe of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, describes her research into how gratitude affects romantic partners’ feelings for one another, as well as their style of relating to each other.
In one study, Dr. Algoe and her colleagues tracked men and women in long-term romantic relationships for two weeks, asking them to report each day whether their partners had done anything nice for them and how much gratitude they felt toward them as a result. When participants felt grateful for their partner’s kindness on one day, they felt significantly more satisfied with their relationship on the next. And the partners of these newly grateful men and women felt more connected to them and more satisfied with their relationship than they had on the previous day.
