This past Thanksgiving provided the impetus for two columns in newspapers about the virtues of gratitude.
In his monthly article for the New York Jewish Week of Nov. 27th, 2015, entitled “Gratitude Rising” (http://www.thejewishweek.com/features/culture-view/gratitude-rising ) Ted Merwin, a teacher of religion at Dickenson College, quotes extensively from a 2010 paper written by Jeffrey Froh, a psychology professor at Hofstra. Merwin cites the following six observations contained in Froh’s paper:
1) (With respect to American teenagers) “the more grateful they are, the more likely that they will be happy, healthy and well adjusted, with more friends and higher grades.”
2) “Gratitude is an orientation to life.”
3) “Gratitude has a ‘higher correlation to life satisfaction’ than other virtues like hope, humor, curiosity and wisdom.”
4) “Gratitude is the most malleable of all of our strengths. You can acquire it through practice.”
5) “Materialism and gratitude have a really strong negative correlation.”
6) “We need to work harder at modeling gratitude for our kids.”