Can saying “thanks” hinder social contact? Encouraging people to express gratitude to an old friend undermines reconnection efforts

Most people are reluctant to reach out to “old friends” (i.e., friends they care about but with whom they have lost touch), even though they would like to reconnect. Given past research demonstrating the social benefits of gratitude, we examined whether expressing gratitude may encourage people to reach out to old friends. In Study 1, we explored the natural frequency of gratitude in reaching out attempts with a team of coders who evaluated 194 written notes to old friends. Only one note included an unambiguous statement of gratitude, suggesting that people rarely express gratitude spontaneously when reaching out to old friends. Because infrequent use does not preclude potential, we conducted a large, pre-registered experiment in which 424 participants were randomly assigned to draft a note to an old friend with either a suggestion to include an expression of gratitude ( gratitude condition ), or without this suggestion ( control condition ). All participants were encouraged to send their note to their old friend and reported whether they did so. Contrary to our pre-registered hypothesis, participants in the gratitude condition were less likely to send their note. These findings help refine theories of gratitude as well as research on old friends and social connection.