Essay Example: Gratitude and Contentment With Life

Do you ever imagine a world where everyone existing in it was 100% satisfied/content with their life, the decisions made, and where they ended up? According to the 2017 Harris Poll Survey of American Happiness, only 33% of Americans surveyed said they were happy. It means that less than half of Americans are satisfied with their life... but why? What factors play a role in how you feel about how your life is going or how it may end up? For this research, I am trying to see if there is any relationship between contentment with life and gratitude. Gratitude is the quality of being thankful and/or readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. I have found many articles on both gratitude and contentment with life that will help me further grasp a better understanding of how/if both variables have a relationship.

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Research by Gocen explores the kind of things that kids are grateful for in their lives. The article further reveals how gratitude, life satisfaction, and spirituality connect. The study involved the diaries of the participants which turned out to be a valuable resource in trying to appreciate the workings of their world. Gocen (200) revealed in this study that basic needs, including food, shelter, and clothing, were the most critical aspect a child was grateful for. This theme was followed by family, the school community, being alive, and being healthy. Similarly, the study revealed that children are most grateful for their family, friends, and basic needs. Gocen (200) also reiterates that it is no wonder family comes first for children as they provide all the elements required for survival, including food, drinks, and attachment. These aspects are some of those that determine what a person grows into and how grateful they are.

Emmons and McCullough, in their study, also added their vast knowledge in their research about gratitude and contentment. The study aimed to reveal the effects that a grateful outlook has on physical and psychological wellbeing (Emmons and McCullough 378). The researchers reiterate that there is a connection between gratitude, contentment, and wellbeing even though subtly. Gratitude, being a pleasant and activating emotion, often leads to other pleasurable emotions such as contentment in life. Further, being grateful in life is a vital process by which individuals respond to various circumstances in life. Thus, a person's ability to respond to difficult and pleasurable situations by being grateful determines not only their contentment but also their wellbeing, according to Emmons and McCullough (378). Even more critically, the findings of Emmons and McCullough (379) echo the sentiments of many writings, both classical and contemporary, that one maximizes their contentment in life by being grateful for whatever life throws at them.

Another study by Robustelli and Whisman (7) sought to examine the relationship between gratitude and various facets of satisfaction, including health, work, relationships, and general life satisfaction in the US and Japan. The study revealed a positive connection between gratitude and happiness in relationships and general life but not with the health and work aspects. The research also found that women in the US who were extraverts and had at least a college degree were more grateful in comparison with their counterparts who did not have college degrees. Thus, Robustelli and Whisman (50) concluded that gratitude has a unique relationship with particular aspects of life. Carmen Salvador-Ferrer Salvador (231) also investigated the correlation between gratitude and contentment. He used a sample of Spanish university students to do the experiment and come to his conclusion. The study majorly hinged on the role of gender in the connection between gratitude and life satisfaction. The results revealed a negative correlation between the two variables. In essence, individuals who had immense gratitude experienced significantly low satisfaction in life. Similarly, those who experienced a relatively higher degree of life satisfaction had low levels of gratitude that characterize their lives.

Wood, Joseph, and Maltby (27) attempt to explain whether gratitude and satisfaction with life has a connection. The general argument about the relationship between gratitude and satisfaction with life is that gratitude has a positive valiance and should, therefore, be able to influence positive emotions related to wellbeing. Wood et al. (49) maintain that being grateful needs not to be taken as synonymous with satisfaction and contentment since they exhibit different patterns of correlation with various interpersonal and socio-demographic variables. The study revealed that gratitude had a positive connection with social wellbeing. The results also showed that gratitude had a close correlation with aspects that represent social functioning and wellbeing. An article exploring the effect of self-esteem and gratitude on happiness also adds to the discussion. Hwang, Kang, and Sieun Lee used 192 pre-service early childhood teachers as respondents in the research that was done in Busan, South Korea. It turned out that the level of gratitude, contentment, self-esteem, and happiness was a little above average. The study also revealed that these aspects correlated positively with each other.

'Contentment and Affect in the Estimation of Happiness' is yet another article that gives different views of happiness and its relation to contentment in life. The author pores through two principal theories in happiness and contentment phenomena. According to the cognitive definition, satisfaction in life is about the status of a person's life visa-vie the state the person would want to be. In other words, there does not exist any one criterion for assessing whether a person has a good life or not. Instead, everybody has a way of knowing whether their life is moving towards the direction they are wishing for or not. The cognitive definition of happiness, on the other hand, is about one's evaluation of their overall situation after factoring in their past good and bad experiences. The article concluded that there is a stronger correlation between life satisfaction and contentment. Overall, it appeared that people's assessment of their happiness hinged on societal standards when assessing their general satisfaction in life.

Rojas and Veenhoven (524) also weigh in with an article about the connection between research and gratitude. The author reiterates that while everyone has their definition, the most important thing is to realize there is no universality when it comes to defining happiness. According to Rojas and Veenhoven (524), happiness means the experience of positive emotions like pride and joy, and less negative emotions like sadness and sorrow. Rojas, and Veenhoven (524), in the study, found a strong correlation between gratitude and happiness. According to the author, if a person is more thankful for her own experiences in life, then they are bound to have positive emotions, which then give them the strength to face different adversities in life and generally enjoy it. Individuals show gratitude in three significant ways. First is being grateful for what the future may hold, bad or good. Second is to be grateful for the present experiences in life, and finally being grateful for their past. All the three aspects take one a long way in realizing that they have greater things to live for in the future.

In a nutshell, several researchers have looked into the possible connection between gratitude and contentment. Even though they cannot agree on a single definition of the two terms, they elicit subtle similarities in their approaches. A majority of the researchers found that gratitude and contentment have a strong correlation, especially with another factor, which is happiness in life. Individuals who are grateful find contentment in life and vice versa. In the end, these individuals exhibit happier lives in comparison with their counterparts who are not grateful and contented.

Works cited

Gocen, Gulusan. "Qualitatively Exploring the Relationship among Gratitude, Spirituality and Life Satisfaction in Turkish-Muslim Children." Spiritual Psychology and Counseling 1.2 (2016): 189-208.

Hwang, Haeik, et al. "Impact of self-esteem and gratitude disposition on happiness in pre-service early childhood teachers." Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 174 (2015): 3447-3453.

McCullough, M. E., and R. A. Emmons. "Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective wellbeing in daily life." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84.2 (2003): 377-389.

Robustelli, Briana L., and Mark A. Whisman. "Gratitude and life satisfaction in the United States and Japan." Journal of happiness studies 19.1 (2018): 41-55.

Rojas, Mariano, and Ruut Veenhoven. "Contentment and affect in the estimation of happiness." Social Indicators Research 110.2 (2013): 415-431.

Salvador-Ferrer, Carmen. "The relationship between Gratitude and Life satisfaction in a sample of Spanish university students." Anales De Psicologia/Annals of Psychology 33.1 (2017): 114-119.

Wood, Alex M., Stephen Joseph, and John Maltby. "Gratitude uniquely predicts satisfaction with life: Incremental validity above the domains and facets of the five factor model." Personality and individual differences 45.1 (2008): 49-54.