Gratitude

Gratitude is not politeness and not a debt acknowledged. It is what the receiver of an altruistic interaction feels towards the provider, and in Marsh's economy it is also what balances the interaction, which is why it is more than sentiment. Gratitude and respect function as payment, and where they are withheld the receiver is left indebted instead. That makes gratitude the completing half of an exchange rather than an optional garnish on one. It is closely tied to love, since love is the creation of a shared animus through balanced interaction and gratitude is what makes the interaction balance. The inverse pairing is exact and diagnostic. Ingratitude and contempt signify an endosocial power structure, one in which credit is stolen from the giver and replaced with negative image status, which is the operation that turns a gift into charity. What the giver is owed is recognition, and refusing it does not merely fail to repay but actively reverses the transfer. This is why earnings given with a lack of gratitude and respect impart no primary anima, since nothing was offered through a balanced connection. Marsh treats the small daily forms as significant rather than trivial. Societies where everyone thanks the bus driver as they get off, or where people bow to thank or apologize in passing, are far healthier than societies permitting no gratitude or contrition at all.

Positive psychology has produced a substantial evidence base on gratitude, with Robert Emmons and others linking gratitude practices to wellbeing, and the intervention literature treats it as a disposition that can be cultivated. Sociology of the gift after Mauss treats gratitude as part of the obligation to reciprocate, and Georg Simmel called it the moral memory of mankind, which is nearest to Marsh's framing. Philosophy debates whether gratitude is owed and to whom. What Marsh adds is the accounting. In the psychological literature gratitude benefits the person feeling it, whereas in her account it discharges something owed to the giver, which makes withholding it a transfer rather than a missed opportunity for personal flourishing.