Fostering gratitude can encourage adolescents to become less materialistic and more generous, suggests a study in The Journal of Positive Psychology. Researchers asked 61 adolescents to keep a daily journal for two weeks–half were assigned to write about who and what they were thankful for, while a control group simply recorded daily activities. Both before and after the two weeks, the adolescents completed surveys measuring their levels of gratitude and materialism. Participants who kept gratitude journals showed significant increases in gratitude and decreases in materialism; the control group did not. Also, at the end of the two weeks, the researchers gave the adolescents $10 and told them that they could keep it all or donate some to charity. The gratitude group donated $6.81 of their earnings, on average, while the control group donated $4.23. (Monitor on Psychology)

Susie Bean Gives