Gratitude Expressions Improve Teammates’ Cardiovascular Stress Responses

Abstract

Gratitude expressions play a key role in strengthening relationships, suggesting gratitude might promote adaptive responses during teamwork. However, little research has examined gratitude’s impact on loose tie relationships (like coworkers), and similarly little research has examined how gratitude impacts stress responding or biological responses more generally. The present research uses an ecologically valid, dyadic teamwork paradigm to test how gratitude expressions impact in vivo challenge and threat stress responding, assessed via an index of cardiac output and total peripheral resistance. Compared to a control condition, teammates (N = 190) who were randomly assigned to a gratitude expression manipulation showed increased cardiovascular efficiency while jointly completing an acutely stressful collaborative work task (developing a product pitch). These effects persisted later in the session when the teammates completed an individual performance task (pitching the product). The finding that gratitude expressions promote adaptive biological responding at the dyadic level contributes to a growing literature on the social functions of positive emotions and gratitude, specifically. The present results suggest that workplace gratitude interventions can benefit stress responding, promoting resilience in teams