'Thank You' Backfires When Used in This Way

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Gratitude is a hot topic in popular psychology – but is it always a good thing? In this episode we explore "insincere gratitude" where your thanks could be doing more harm than good.

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REFERENCES 📚
Gordon, A. M., Impett, E. A., Kogan, A., Oveis, C., & Keltner, D. (2012). To have and to hold: Gratitude promotes relationship maintenance in intimate bonds. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(2), 257-274.

Leong, J. L. T., Chen, S. X., Fung, H. H. L., Bond, M. H., Siu, N. Y. F., & Zhu, J. Y. (2019). Is Gratitude Always Beneficial to Interpersonal Relationships? The Interplay of Grateful Disposition, Grateful Mood, and Grateful Expression Among Married Couples. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Williams, L. A., & Bartlett, M. Y. (2015). Warm thanks: Gratitude expression facilitates social affiliation in new relationships via perceived warmth. Emotion, 15(1), 1-5.


Grant, A. M., & Gino, F. (2010). A little thanks goes a long way: Explaining why gratitude expressions motivate prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(6), 946-955.

Sara B. Algoe & Ruixue Zhaoyang (2016) Positive psychology in context: Effects of expressing gratitude in ongoing relationships depend on perceptions of enactor responsiveness, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 11:4, 399-415,DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2015.1117131

Sudhir, K., Fong, H., and Roy, S. (2019) Greedy or grateful? Asking for more when thanking donors. Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers.

Algoe, Sara & Kurtz, Laura & Hilaire, Nicole. (2016). Putting the "You" in "Thank You": Examining Other-Praising Behavior as the Active Relational Ingredient in Expressed Gratitude. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 7. 10.1177/1948550616651681.

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