In the past 2-3 years I have experienced a huge increase in personal sensitivity, especially related to emotional stimuli. This has led to understanding that I am a ‘Highly Sensitive Person’ (www.hsperson.com), or, ‘Innate Sensitive’ in Jungian Psychology .
During this process, and time, many times I become simply irate, after obvious courtesy is ignored (holding a door, letting a car through, basic social courtesy). Over the past few years I feel this had become more and more prevalent, believing it to be a localised issue firstly (that people in the new area we live, are more prone to social discourtesy), however I now believe that it may be a wider societal issue.
This new published study shows that courtesy matters, a lot:
Undervaluing Gratitude: Expressers Misunderstand the Consequences of Showing Appreciation.
Abstract
Expressing gratitude improves well-being for both expressers and recipients, but we suggest that an egocentric bias may lead expressers to systematically undervalue its positive impact on recipients in a way that could keep people from expressing gratitude more often in everyday life. Participants in three experiments wrote gratitude letters and then predicted how surprised, happy, and awkward recipients would feel. Recipients then reported how receiving an expression of gratitude actually made them feel. Expressers significantly underestimated how surprised recipients would be about why expressers were grateful, overestimated how awkward recipients would feel, and underestimated how positive recipients would feel. Expected awkwardness and mood were both correlated with participants’ willingness to express gratitude. Wise decisions are guided by an accurate assessment of the expected value of action. Underestimating the value of prosocial actions, such as expressing gratitude, may keep people from engaging in behavior that would maximize their own-and others’-well-being.
KEYWORDS:
gratitude; happiness; open data; open materials; preregistered; social cognition; social connection; well-being
- PMID: 29949445
My wife always urges me to calm down about it, when I get upset, asking why it matters to me, if others are not polite, but I can’t help it, my high sensitivity makes me constantly look at the world and reflect how actions of people affect those around them.
Why would you ignore thanking someone? someone who has obviously been kind, gracious, or polite, to you? Happiness creates a positive thought form, we need more of this in our lives.
Thank you for reading this, and thank you for being thankful!