By Sterling M. Hawkins, MSW, LCSW-C, LICSW
“The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.”
— William James
Most consider financial wellness to be the ability to manage your money effectively. While it’s impossible to eliminate every risk to our financial portfolios, one thing remains always within our control— the ability to give thanks. I learned this lesson years ago when returning to my native District of Columbia after having lived in Florida for a number of years. Not long after returning, I met my future wife. I had saved while living in Florida and while I had some student loan debt, it was manageable. So, I lived at my mother’s house until I regained my bearings while searching for employment, and my own place. However, I decided to take the first couple of months after returning and do nothing except enjoy the outdoors, fish, cycle, and read for hours. Besides, it was the beginning of summer. And I wasn’t about to allow the summer to pass without soaking up as much of it as I could. I would soon be mourning the loss of it and the return of winter. After having spent five years in the Sunshine State I needed to prepare myself mentally for things to come.
I met Merlene a few months after returning to DC. My meager savings by the end of the summer was dwindling when we met. I had just started a new job and was attempting to build back the money I had depleted on bare essentials— food, gas, and car insurance. So, our dating life was not extravagant—free concerts, budget theatrical performances by local artists, museums, and restaurants. On a few occasions, Merlene gave me money for gas and offered to pay for dinner when we went out. I remembered her acts of kindness toward me. I was just beginning to regain my independence and felt toward her an immense sense of gratitude for her kindness and acceptance of my lowly estate.
In my introduction to the topic of Market Economics, I said that currency comes in many forms. One form of currency is gratitude. Gratitude is an emotional currency that often holds more nominal value for those who possess it than for those who don’t. Gratitude is defined in this context as the quality of being thankful and ready to show appreciation for and to return kindness.
According to a research study published in June 2014 in Psychological Science, people make better financial decisions when they feel grateful. Being in a state of gratitude made participants more likely to have the patience to save for a higher return on their money. David De Steno of Northeastern University’s department of Psychology led the interdisciplinary research project, entitled Gratitude: A Tool for Reducing Economic Impatience. The study’s aim was to weigh how various emotions affected people’s ability to make better financial decisions by choosing to receive a greater amount of money in 30 days versus a lesser amount immediately.
In the study, participants were given a classic test of their ability to delay gratification, not unlike the famous Stanford “Marshmallow Experiment.” The Stanford experiment tested to see if children could wait 15 minutes to receive a second marshmallow (or another goodie) along with the first. In the gratitude study, adult participants were given a choice between receiving $54 now or $80 in 30 days. While the dollar figure was modest, the rate of return was impressive – a monthly return of 48% or an annualized return of 57%. To test the influence of specific emotions on their financial decision-making, participants were directed to spend 5 minutes journaling about something that would lead them to feel either grateful, happy, or neutral before making their decision. Those who were either happy or neutral were very likely to take the $54 offered instead of waiting for the $80, with no significant difference between those in a happy or neutral state of mind. Researchers discovered that those who put themselves in a grateful state of mind significantly increased patience and self-control. Not only were the participants in the state of gratitude more likely to wait 30 days to receive the $80, but the results also showed that the more gratitude the participants reported feeling, the more willing they were to wait for the larger return.
I believe this study suggests that gratitude is an important element in experiencing contentment and inner wealth. I say “inner” wealth because similar to patience, gratitude is a state of being where the value is defined by how one thinks about oneself relative to others, or in the case of a marriage or long-term partnership, one’s partner. https://thoughtprint.consulting/blog June 24, 2023. Examining the benefits of delayed gratification can often decide whether a long-term relationship will survive the ups and downs of a volatile market economy. An example of this can be seen in how most long-term relationships are formed and sustained over the years. Couples like companies, when forming a partnership, learn about each other’s assets, their histories, their affiliations, their deficits, and how each handles circumstances beyond their control. They discover about each other the influences required for rational decision-making and how to spend, save, and invest their capital with the purpose of obtaining a return. Couples must also navigate crises and learn how to suffer loss without becoming insolvent.
I would be remiss at this point if I neglect The Law of Diminishing Returns when discussing gratitude. The Law of Diminishing Returns in economics says there is a point where continued effort fails to produce the desired result. That is to say, if my investment in a particular area increases the rate of profit from that investment, it will only do so up to a certain point. And after that point has been reached, each additional input of measured effort results in a smaller increase in output or returns. The Law of Diminishing Returns, while used primarily to describe production and workflow in business cycles, has broad application for other areas including work, friendships, and romantic relationships.
For example, if you are investing heavily in a relationship and it appears to be getting worse instead of better (e.g., more arguments or conflicts) then this could mean that too much time is being spent in one area of your relationship. Licensed Professional Counselor Marlayne Whitlock says, “Couples often ‘memorize the dance steps’ to their relationship. They expect their memorized behavior will always work. ‘This is the way we’ve always done it in the past, so doing more of it will surely make things better.’ . . . It may mean that a simple change is needed, or goals might need to be redefined.” During times of uncertainty, misunderstanding, or tangible loss, perceived indifference to such failure or the inability to quickly resolve it creates a myriad of emotions that will suffocate any hint of gratitude. For this reason, cultivating a gracious mindset becomes essential in promoting healing to repair the damage done by its opposite ingratitude.
In marriage and long-term partnerships, focusing on what you or your partner do not possess is easy. This could become a dominant theme in your thinking. I am not suggesting that qualifying negative criteria used to determine whether you should invest in a long-term partnership be eliminated. Only that determining your own liabilities and those of your partner requires a macro-approach and should be balanced with a thorough estimation of the total portfolio including individual and jointly held qualities and traits. Therefore, the aim of gratitude is to help us to be thankful for what we have, or our partner has rather than what we don’t have. For many of us, gratitude may require a change in the steps of the dance, or in market economics a change in investment strategy. In practical terms how might this look?
In a market economy, outcomes are affected by labor. If labor fails to match demand, consumers of those services and goods become dissatisfied with output. The same is true in marriage and long-term partnerships. And, even when labor matches demand, we grow accustomed to goods and services being produced at a rate that satisfies the demand. Particularly when labor is sustained for long periods. However, an equitable division of labor may not be enough to ensure that partners are satisfied with their relationship.
Researchers, Angela Trethewey at California State University and Jes Alberts at Arizona State University write “When you perform work around the house from cooking to laundry to checking your kid’s homework, it often feels like a burden to yourself and a gift to your partner. So, if you don’t feel that your partner is grateful for your efforts, especially if you perform the lion’s share of domestic labor, that’s likely to exacerbate feelings of inequity and dissatisfaction making a difficult situation even worse”. In their research, Trethewey and Alberts found evidence through focus groups, interviews, and surveys with people in heterosexual and same-sex relationships that gratitude isn’t just a way to mitigate the negative effects of an unequal division of labor. Rather, a lack of gratitude may be connected to why that division of labor is so unequal, to begin with.
Their research suggests partners’ response threshold for particular tasks are decided by the degree of dissatisfaction that exists before one partner is sufficiently bothered to perform a task not being done or performed unsatisfactorily. They give the following example:
“If Joan’s partner Ted is disturbed when the trash in the wastebasket approaches the rim, whereas it doesn’t bother her until the trash spills onto the floor, Ted will take out the trash before Joan is moved to do so. If the difference in their disturbance levels is great enough, Joan never will empty the trash, because Ted will always take care of it before it bothers her, possibly before she ever even notices the garbage.
What’s more, if one partner does something well, that increases the chance he’ll perform that task again, just as failing at the task (or a lack of opportunity to complete it) decrease the chance he’ll get another turn. Then consider that, before long, the partner who performs a task more frequently will likely be seen as a specialist at it. Taken together, these facts explain how one partner can get stuck with a household chore.”
Sociologist and writer Arlie Hochschild coined the concept of emotional labor in her book titled— The Managed Heart- 1983. Hochschild believes that in relationships, individuals offer each other “gifts,” which are something extra, beyond what is expected. For Hochschild, the expression and management of emotion are social processes. Therefore, what people feel and express depends on societal norms, one’s social category, and cultural factors.
You may recall when discussing the topic of patience, I said that careful identification of how each partner interprets what they see, hear, and feel becomes the key determinant in whether or not the relationship will survive. It should be underscored here that perspectives held by each partner be jointly analyzed based on the sociocultural factors that influence their individual behavior. That is to say, do these perspectives hinder or help gratitude to flourish? And, if not why?
Gratitude reflects what we believe we deserve for ourselves and our partners. It reflects what we have been taught. It shows love and respect. It is a language that is acquired. It is a language that is learned.
The Roman philosopher Seneca (4BC – 65 AD) wrote the following on gratitude and what it really means to be generous – “Benefits, as well as injuries, depend on the spirit… Our feeling about every obligation depends in each case upon the spirit in which the benefit is conferred; we weigh not the bulk of the gift, but the quality of the good-will which prompted it.”
For these reasons and more, expressing gratitude to your partner reminds them that the division of labor is not fair and that their contributions are a gift.
American author Annie Dillard in her effort to encourage generosity for aspiring writers, I believe offers sound advice for married couples and long-term partnerships in a market economy. She writes-- The impulse to save something good [gratitude] for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better… The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned [or earned] is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”
It is unlikely that gratitude will eliminate all conflict surrounding couples’ division of labor, but it can help partners reduce the frequency of their conflicts and most importantly avoid the trap of taking each other for granted.
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References:
DeSteno, D., Li, Y., Lerner, J. S. (2014). Gratitude: A Tool for Reducing Economic Impatience. Psychological Science (25), 1262-1267 https://davedesteno.com/publications/gratitude-a-tool-for-reducing-economic-impatience-pdf
Dillard, A. (1989, January 1.) The Writing Life. Good Reads. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/151317-one-of-the-things-i-know-about-writing-is-this
The Law of Diminishing Returns. Grow Counseling.com https://growcounseling.com/relationships-diminishing-returns/
Trethewey, A., Alberts,(2007, June) J. Love, Honor, and Thank. Greater Good Magazine, June 2007. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/love_honor_thank Whitlock, M. (n.d.). Relationships:
