When Saying “Thank You” Lowers Your Status: The Dark Side of Gratitude That Therapy Never Mentions
Monday, February 2, 2026.
Most therapists are trained—explicitly or implicitly—to treat gratitude as an unalloyed good.
Say thank you. Mean it. Feel it. Express it. Build the bond.
Regulate the nervous system. Everyone leaves warmer.
This study suggests something far more uncomfortable.
Gratitude does not just lubricate relationships.
It rearranges the hierarchy inside them.
And once you see that, you just can’t unsee it.
The Part Therapists Don’t Like to Say Out Loud
According to a series of studies published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, people who express intense gratitude are reliably perceived as lower in status and power than the person they are thanking.
Not colder.
Not less likable.
Lower.
Observers infer that the thanker has less agency, less control, less leverage—even when the favor itself is modest and identical across conditions.
In other words:
Gratitude reads as vertical, not just relational.
That is the part most therapists dread, because it violates a core therapeutic superstition:
that emotional transparency automatically flattens power.
It doesn’t.
Sometimes it actually sharpens it.
Warmth vs. Agency: The Trade-Off We Pretend Doesn’t Exist
Psychology has spent decades telling us that gratitude signals warmth, responsiveness, prosocial intent. All true.
What this research adds—uncomfortably—is that gratitude can also signal dependence.
Observers appear to reason, often unconsciously:
High-status people give resources.
Low-status people receive them.
Receivers thank.
Therefore, thankers are lower in rank.
This inference happens even when participants are explicitly instructed to judge status after controlling for the favor itself.
The words matter.
The intensity matters more.
“I’m incredibly grateful.”
“I really owe you.”
These phrases don’t just convey appreciation. They communicate indebtedness.
And indebtedness is never neutral in a hierarchy.
Why This Makes Therapists Squirm
Because therapy culture has spent years moralizing gratitude.
Gratitude journals.
Gratitude walls.
Gratitude as character strength.
Gratitude as emotional maturity.
What we rarely discuss is who can afford gratitude without consequence.
Power already softens the optics.
A manager who says “I really appreciate this!” sounds generous.
An employee who says the same thing sounds… grateful.
The same sentence lands differently depending on where you stand in the hierarchy.
Therapy often pretends those hierarchies dissolve once people “communicate authentically.”
They don’t.
They just go quiet.
The Real-World Email Findings Are the Most Revealing
The final studies—using real workplace emails and messages—are where the illusion really cracks.
What lowered perceived status wasn’t:
using more words, or
being polite, or
expressing thanks once.
It was sending a message that was primarily about gratitude.
A message whose only function was to thank.
Those senders were rated as lower in status, lower in power, less competent, and less assertive.
Gratitude became the whole identity of the message.
No agenda.
No forward motion.
No signal of authorship or authority.
Just thanks.
Therapists often encourage exactly this kind of “clean” emotional expression.
The research specifically suggests that it quietly costs something.
The Dangerous Fantasy: That Gratitude Is Free
The study authors are careful—and correct—to say the effects are not massive. This is not an argument against saying thank you.
It is an argument against compulsive gratitude.
Against repeated thanking.
Against over-amplification.
Against using gratitude as a substitute for presence, contribution, or voice.
Gratitude is not free in a hierarchy-conscious species.
It buys warmth.
Sometimes it sells power.
The Clinical Takeaway We Rarely Offer Clients
Here’s the version most therapists won’t say plainly:
Express gratitude from agency, not from collapse.
Say thank you while also saying something else.
Name appreciation without erasing your role.
Avoid turning gratitude into a performance of your relative smallness.
Warmth and authority are not enemies—but they do sometimes compete for bandwidth.
Adults in real relationships must manage them both.
And that is far more honest than pretending hierarchy evaporates the moment we feel grateful.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed
REFERENCES:
Laurin, K., Guan, K. W., & Younge, A. (2025). Does Saying “Thanks a Lot” Make You Look Less Than? The Magnitude of Gratitude Shapes Perceptions of Relational Hierarchy.