Does Gratitude Journaling Actually Work? What a 2025 Study Found

💡 Yes, but modestly. A 2025 meta-analysis of 145 studies and 24,804 participants found that gratitude practices produce a real but small boost to well-being (Hedges' g = 0.19). The effect is strongest for positive mood. Crucially, it is not equally effective in every culture: significant in the US, Australia, and South Korea, but not in France, Japan, or the UK.

Composite well-beingg = 0.28

Positive affectg = 0.27

Life satisfactiong = 0.18

Depressive symptomsg = 0.15

Negative affectg = 0.12

What did the largest gratitude journaling review actually find?

In July 2025, researchers at Kyung Hee University in Seoul published the most comprehensive review of gratitude journaling science to date in PNAS. The team pooled 145 studies covering 24,804 participants from 28 countries and ran a preregistered meta-analysis - meaning their methods were locked in before the data were analyzed, the gold standard for this type of review.

The headline result: gratitude interventions reliably increase well-being, but the effect is small. The overall Hedges' g was 0.19, which statisticians classify as a small effect. By comparison, exercise's effect on depression is typically g = 0.60-0.80. Gratitude is not in that league - but "small" does not mean "nothing."

Spread across thousands of people, a consistent g = 0.19 boost to positive mood is meaningful. The question is whether the self-help industry's framing matches reality, and the honest answer is: it does not. This is general information, not medical advice; speak to a professional if you are managing depression or anxiety.

What does a "small" effect size actually mean for your daily life?

An effect size of g = 0.19 is roughly equivalent to a height difference of about 2.5 cm between two people. You would notice it if you measured carefully, but it would not be obvious by eye.

Translated into practical terms: if 100 people start a gratitude journal and 100 similar people do not, the journaling group will, on average, score somewhat higher on well-being measures after a few weeks. Not dramatically, not "life-changing" - but measurably and consistently, which is more than most wellness trends can say.

Where the effect is strongest: positive mood (g = 0.27) and composite well-being (g = 0.28). Where it is weakest: reducing negative affect, like anxiety or anger (g = 0.12). Gratitude practice is better at adding positive experiences than erasing negative ones - an important distinction for anyone approaching it as a cure for depression or anxiety.

Which type of gratitude practice produces the best results?

The meta-analysis distinguished several formats of gratitude practice, and the differences matter. The technique with the strongest effect was counterfactual gratitude, which produced g = 0.36 - nearly double the overall average.

Counterfactual gratitude means deliberately imagining your life without something you have: a close friendship, your health, a job you enjoy, the city where you live. Rather than listing what you are grateful for - which can become rote and lose its power quickly - you actively construct the contrast. "What would today look like if this were gone?" The vividness of that imagined loss appears to sharpen the felt value of what remains.

Mixed or combined interventions - pairing blessing-counting, letter-writing, and direct expression of gratitude - also outperformed the overall average (g = 0.26). Simple daily blessing lists, the format sold in most journals and apps, produced the weakest results. The researchers also found that practices layered onto existing mindfulness habits integrated gratitude more effectively than isolated journaling sessions.

Does gratitude journaling work equally everywhere in the world?

This is the finding that most popular write-ups miss: no, it does not. The meta-analysis broke effects down by country, and the results were striking.

Countries with significant effects: United States, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Spain, South Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, and others.

Countries with no significant effect: France, India, Japan, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

The researchers suggest the difference may relate to cultural individualism, pre-existing baseline levels of expressed gratitude, and how much a culture encourages self-focused emotional reflection. Gratitude journaling is, at its core, an individualist practice of directing positive attention toward your own life - a frame that resonates more strongly in some cultural contexts than others.

This matters for Vietnamese readers or anyone navigating cross-cultural life. The research base is heavily weighted toward Western, English-speaking samples - a limitation the authors explicitly acknowledge. Vietnam did not appear in the 28 countries studied, so the data cannot tell us whether the effect generalizes here.

How can you get the most from a gratitude practice?

Based on what the meta-analysis found, four adjustments will likely improve your results compared to a plain daily list:

• Use counterfactual framing: instead of "I am grateful for my coffee", try "What would today look like if I had never developed this friendship, this skill, this habit?"
• Be specific and novel: general entries ("my health", "my family") lose their impact faster than specific, recent ones ("the conversation I had with my sister on Tuesday").
• Express it outward sometimes: writing a brief note of thanks to someone - even unsent - combines positive affect with social connection, which has its own independent benefits for well-being.
• Aim for 2-4 times per week, not daily: less frequent but more deliberate entries tend to outperform mechanical daily habit lists.

What are the honest limitations of this gratitude journaling research?

The meta-analysis is high quality, but its authors were candid about several constraints:

• The search was limited to English-language studies, systematically under-representing cultures where research is published in other languages.
• Country was used as a proxy for culture - a rough approximation. Within any country, there is enormous variation in how people relate to gratitude practices.
• The studies measured short-to-medium-term outcomes (weeks to a few months). Whether a years-long sustained practice produces compounding or diminishing returns is simply not known from this data.
• There is no agreed clinical definition of gratitude journaling. The 145 studies varied widely in frequency, duration, format, and instruction.
• As with all psychological interventions, placebo and expectation effects are difficult to rule out entirely.

The honest conclusion: gratitude practices have a real, modest, culturally variable effect on well-being, and the research quality is good enough to take seriously - while staying appropriately skeptical of the hype. See also: what the science says about exercise and depression, another lifestyle intervention with a stronger evidence base.

FAQ

Source: Choi H. et al., "A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of gratitude interventions on well-being across cultures," PNAS, July 2025

About the author

Dao Huy (Lucas) is a professional translator working between English, Vietnamese, Chinese, and French, with over seven years of experience in legal, medical, and technical documents. He writes these explainers because clear, honest answers to everyday questions are often buried under hype - and because a translator's job is fundamentally about making meaning cross barriers, whether linguistic or scientific.

If you need professional English-Vietnamese translation, certified document translation, or multilingual localization for your organization, Lucas offers a fast, accurate service. Get a free quote at daohuy.com.