Study: A combined teaching + app gratitude program helps adolescents address anxiety and improve mental health

Stu­dents and edu­ca­tors have start­ed a new school year in the midst of a pan­dem­ic, an eco­nom­ic cri­sis, a reck­on­ing with racial injus­tice, and a divi­sive polit­i­cal cli­mate. Everyone’s men­tal health is at risk, and schools are search­ing for ways to sup­port young people’s well-being in addi­tion to their aca­d­e­m­ic learning.

In recent years, many edu­ca­tors have done this with social-emo­tion­al learn­ing (SEL) pro­grams, which focus on build­ing stu­dents’ skills in under­stand­ing and man­ag­ing emo­tions, relat­ing pos­i­tive­ly with oth­ers, and behav­ing in per­son­al­ly and social­ly respon­si­ble ways. Now, a new study sug­gests that an area of SEL that has often been over­looked in the past could be key to build­ing com­mu­ni­ty and resilience in stu­dents: gratitude.

In a study pub­lished in The Jour­nal of Pos­i­tive Psy­chol­o­gy, Gia­co­mo Bono and his col­leagues found that when high school­ers are taught about grat­i­tude and giv­en oppor­tu­ni­ties to prac­tice it, they show improved men­tal health and well­ness. Based on these find­ings, the authors argue that incor­po­rat­ing grat­i­tude can be a rel­a­tive­ly easy, low-cost strat­e­gy to help stu­dents thrive.

Across two urban high schools, six class­rooms (152 stu­dents) par­tic­i­pat­ed in lessons and activ­i­ties to learn about the sci­ence of gratitude—what it means, how to prac­tice it, and the ben­e­fits it can bring—for six weeks. Addi­tion­al­ly, stu­dents were giv­en access to a grat­i­tude web app called GiveThx that func­tioned some­what like a pri­vate social media net­work. The app allowed stu­dents to express thanks to their class­mates and teach­ers in a low-pres­sure, authen­tic way, when­ev­er and how­ev­er they chose. The hope was that this com­bi­na­tion would be engag­ing for stu­dents and make express­ing and receiv­ing grat­i­tude a nat­ur­al and reward­ing part of their school experience.

A con­trol group of nine com­pa­ra­ble class­rooms (175 stu­dents) did not receive the grat­i­tude pro­gram. Six more class­rooms, 82 stu­dents total, used the app only dur­ing the same peri­od. At the begin­ning and end of the six weeks, all the stu­dents filled out well-being surveys.

What the researchers found was strik­ing. After six weeks, com­pared with the con­trol group, stu­dents who received the full pro­gram not only report­ed a stronger sense of gratitude—they also report­ed increased pos­i­tive emo­tions, decreased anx­i­ety and neg­a­tive emo­tions, and greater sat­is­fac­tion with both their friend­ships and their lives over­all. In oth­er words, learn­ing about and prac­tic­ing grat­i­tude seemed to sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve these high school­ers’ social and emo­tion­al well-being.

Fur­ther analy­ses showed that stu­dents who received both com­po­nents of the pro­gram gave thanks more often, more intense­ly, and to more peo­ple com­pared to stu­dents who only used the app, indi­cat­ing the val­ue of includ­ing class­room lessons, as well.

Last­ly, shar­ing grat­i­tude seemed to be key; the more stu­dents said they expressed thanks to oth­ers, the more they showed improve­ments in a range of SEL com­pe­ten­cies, includ­ing emo­tion reg­u­la­tion, moti­va­tion to achieve, kind and help­ful behav­ior, teacher and peer rela­tion­ships, and sense of mean­ing in life.

Alto­geth­er, this study pro­vides com­pelling evi­dence that teach­ing high school­ers about grat­i­tude and encour­ag­ing them to prac­tice and express it—on their own terms, in ways they are com­fort­able with (like on social media)—can help them become hap­pi­er and improve their men­tal health.

This study reme­died some of the short­com­ings of pre­vi­ous stud­ies in the field by design­ing an entire­ly new grat­i­tude pro­gram specif­i­cal­ly for high school stu­dents, that was taught by teach­ers, and incor­po­rat­ed tech­nol­o­gy, giv­ing teens lots of free­dom in how to express them­selves. Many pre­vi­ous grat­i­tude pro­grams were not tai­lored to ado­les­cents in these ways, and thus may not have felt par­tic­u­lar­ly moti­vat­ing or mean­ing­ful to young peo­ple. Addi­tion­al­ly, though research has shown that actu­al­ly express­ing grat­i­tude to oth­ers (beyond sim­ply feel­ing it one­self) can be extra impact­ful, few youth grat­i­tude pro­grams have includ­ed this step—or grap­pled with how awk­ward it might feel for teens to express thanks.

Though this study was con­duct­ed pre-COVID-19 and did not involve dis­tance learn­ing, it is easy to imag­ine how, even (or espe­cial­ly) when stu­dents are not togeth­er in per­son, mak­ing a habit of express­ing thanks could help build com­mu­ni­ty and well-being. Since grat­i­tude can also help dimin­ish neg­a­tive emo­tions, it could be espe­cial­ly valu­able in these times of fear and uncertainty.

In fact, anoth­er recent study in Chi­na found that part of the rea­son why grate­ful teens tend to be less anx­ious and depressed is because they have greater cop­ing flexibility—a stronger abil­i­ty to think of and use dif­fer­ent cop­ing strate­gies to fit what­ev­er prob­lems they face. It is dif­fi­cult to imag­ine a more oppor­tune time than now for youth to devel­op flex­i­ble cop­ing and emo­tion­al resilience.

When it feels like the world is crash­ing down around them, giv­ing young peo­ple a moment to feel, express, and receive grat­i­tude can help—and that in itself is some­thing to be grate­ful for.

– Emi­ly J. Camp­bell, Ph.D., holds a doc­tor­ate in Human Devel­op­ment and Edu­ca­tion at the UC Berke­ley Grad­u­ate School of Edu­ca­tion, and worked as a research asso­ciate at the Greater Good Sci­ence Cen­ter. Based at UC-Berke­ley, Greater Good high­lights ground break­ing sci­en­tif­ic research into the roots of com­pas­sion and altru­ism. Copy­right Greater Good.

To Learn More:

• Study shows how prac­tic­ing grat­i­tude can help train your brain and improve men­tal health over time
• Six tips to build resilience and pre­vent brain-dam­ag­ing stress
• Enhance Hap­pi­ness and Health by Cul­ti­vat­ing Grat­i­tude: Inter­view with Robert Emmons
• Neu­ro­science tips about grat­i­tude, aging, pain and the brain: An inter­view with Dr. Daniel Levitin