Imagine my surprise, a few months after my springtime piece about the health perks associated with the power of thank you, feeling grateful and keeping the lines of communication open and civil, that a series of studies tackled this very same topic, and with similarly positive results.

The first two experiments focused on "Eric the student" asking for help on his cover letter for a job via email. After sending feedback, respondents received emails asking for more help with another letter, either thanking them for their initial help or offering a neutral response. Only 32 percent of folks receiving the limp, non-emotional email responded with follow-up help while more than double (66 percent) of the thanked folks took action. The thank you "boost" was just as consistent and obvious in a second round of email exchanges with "Steve the student" conducted the very next day.

Interestingly, the final two experiments dealing with face-to-face requests (including one in which a manager thanked university operators for increasing the number of fundraising calls they made) were also positive but the percentages weren't as high (50 percent and 15 percent, respectively), making one wonder if the thank you effect works better in some situations (online) than others.

The other very interesting takeaway from this study: Most of these experiments were interactions among strangers, making me wonder and worry a bit that we may be more helpful to strangers than folks we already know and, probably, take a bit for granted.

Like the rest of you reading this post, while I'm in the throws of work, I feel as if I'm swimming upstream -- very unsuccessfully -- against gravity. After all the reading, researching and writing is done (truth to tell, it never truly is ever done) and I come up briefly for air, however, I feel a tremendous amount of gratitude and pride that comes from having the privilege of sharing what I've learned with you every day. Knowing how many of you take a few minutes each day to read it is a constant "thank you" from you to me that never ends.

By the way, you're welcome too.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 98, No. 6, p. 946-955, June 2010

PsyBlog October 11, 2010