Americans are more grateful than at any point in the past six years — and the hospitality industry, which has long leaned on guest experience and emotional connection as competitive advantages, has reason to pay attention. The fourth wave of the Eastern Washington University and Gracianna Winery Grateful Study, a longitudinal research project launched in Spring 2020, reveals that gratitude scores climbed nearly 10% between 2024 and 2026, reaching the highest level recorded in the study's history.

The findings are counterintuitive: worry, stress, and irritability all increased over the same period, while emotions such as calmness, relief, and optimism declined. Yet gratitude — and to a lesser extent, happiness — bucked that downward trend.

The Data Behind the Shift

"Typically, we would expect rising stress and irritability to suppress positive emotions," said Philip Watkins, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Eastern Washington University and principal investigator of the study. "Instead, gratitude continued to increase and is now higher than we've observed in any previous survey."

Researchers identified several personal attitudes most strongly associated with high gratitude scores: appreciating each day one is alive, recognizing what is truly important in life, taking time to acknowledge life's blessings, and feeling grateful for positive experiences. The pattern suggests gratitude is driven more by perspective and intentionality than by external circumstances — a distinction with practical implications for operators building hospitality cultures.

Across all four survey waves since 2020, gratitude hit its lowest point during peak pandemic uncertainty in 2021, then climbed steadily through 2024 before reaching this new peak. Researchers believe the trajectory may reflect a recovery from post-pandemic emotional fatigue, or a broader cultural shift toward valuing gratitude as a tool for personal resilience.

What It Means for Hospitality

For restaurants and hospitality businesses, the research reinforces what many operators already sense on the floor: guests arrive carrying more stress than in years past, yet they are also more primed to appreciate genuine, attentive service. That emotional dynamic creates both a challenge and an opening for operators focused on guest experience and hospitality culture.

"People are still navigating challenges, uncertainty and stress," said Trini Amador IV, co-founder of Gracianna Winery. "What appears to be changing is their ability to recognize what matters most despite those challenges."

The study also confirmed gratitude as one of the strongest predictors of life satisfaction and happiness — findings consistent with decades of prior psychological research. Researchers plan additional analyses to explore what factors are sustaining gratitude's rise and how it interacts with broader measures of emotional well-being.

For beverage-industry professionals, Gracianna Winery's sustained investment in this research reflects a growing trend of alcohol and hospitality brands building identity around emotional and experiential values rather than product specs alone — a strategy increasingly visible across beverage industry brand positioning. The study has been covered previously by Food & Beverage Magazine as part of broader reporting on consumer emotional trends affecting the food and drink sector.

Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.