Grateful Living and Meaning Making: Research and Challenges | Dr. Robert Emmons | IL13 MC 2002

3 p.m. – 3:50 p.m. Invited Templeton Foundation Lecture
IL13 Robert Emmons, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of California, Davis

Chair – Salvatore Maddi, Ph.D., University of California, Irvine

Grateful Living and Meaning Making: Research and Challenges

Gratitude is the affirmation of the goodness in one’s life combined with a recognition that the sources of this goodness lie at least partially outside of the self. This lecture will conceive of gratitude as a fundamental orientation to life that lends significance and meaning to relationships, events, experiences, and ultimately, to life itself. Research will be reviewed that suggests that setting aside time on a daily basis to recall moments of gratitude associated with even mundane or ordinary events, personal attributes one has, or valued people one encounters has the potential to interweave and thread together a sustainable life theme of highly cherished personal meaning just as it nourishes a fundamental life stance whose thrust is decidedly positive. Experimental findings on the psychological, physical, and interpersonal benefits of “counting blessings” will be described. Making the personal commitment to invest psychic energy in developing a personal schema, outlook, or worldview of one’s life as a “gift” or one’s very self as being “gifted” holds considerable sway from the standpoint of positive psychology. Gratitude engendered in this fashion also informs moral choices and ethical decision-making; that which we are grateful for we are more likely to protect and cherish. Methods for the cultivation of gratitude in daily life will be discussed.

This talk will also elaborate on the apparently common processes of creating positive meaning following stressful and even traumatic events, and the subsequent experience of appreciation and gratefulness that emerges from an encounter with adversity. Narratives of gratitude in the lives of people with chronic neuromuscular disease will be explored. It will be concluded that the ability to live under an aura of pervasive thankfulness is a fundamental human strength; conversely, people who fail to feel grateful for the goodness in their lives cheat themselves out of their experience of life.

Educational Objectives:
1) Explore the perspective that gratitude is a fundamental orientation to life that lends significance and meaning to relationships, events, experiences, and ultimately, to life itself.
2) Review experimental findings on the psychological, physical, and interpersonal benefits of “counting blessings”.
3) Discuss methods for the cultivation of gratitude in daily life.
4) Explore the narratives of gratitude in the lives of people with chronic neuromuscular disease.

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