Oh, I have absolutely no doubts about that! And from at least the review article they had on this page [1], it seems like the do some solid psychological assess

Oh, I have absolutely no doubts about that! And from at least the review article they had on this page [1], it seems like the do some solid psychological assessment of gratitude. What does concern me though is when neuroscience is thrown into the mix just because everything seems more convincing with brain scans[3]. The articles <del>cited</del> referred to in the blog posts linked in the original blog post however often follow this pattern: (1) Assess X (say, gratitude) with an established or new questionnaire. (2) find a condition to vary (3) do a fMRI in both conditions and (4) correlate the contrast with the questionnaire. If you found a correlation, you found the neuronal cause for X! Publish! This is just a huge waste of money. And also often enough poorly done [2]. [1] http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JYj4KStQjhIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA248&dq=Why+gratitude+enhances+well-being:+What+we+know,+what+we+need+to+know.&ots=kVlQxo-xE2&sig=ClfqEvW3v-PAIZe2X4SLza6A-N0#v=onepage&q=Why%20gratitude%20enhances%20well-being%3A%20What%20we%20know%2C%20what%20we%20need%20to%20know.&f=false http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JYj4KStQjhIC&oi=f... [2] http://www.edvul.com/pdf/VulHarrisWinkielmanPashler-PPS-2009.pdf http://www.edvul.com/pdf/VulHarrisWinkielmanPashler-PPS-2009... [3] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465018777/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0465018777&linkCode=as2&tag=slatmaga-20 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465018777/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...