Joseph Murphy’s “thank-you” technique vs gratitude research

What is Murphy’s “thank-you” technique?

It is one of the named methods in his chapter of practical techniques, next to what he calls the visualization technique, the mental movie method and the sleeping technique. Murphy roots it in Paul’s advice to make requests known with thanksgiving, and sums up the idea in one sentence: “The thankful heart is always close to the creative forces of the universe…”

His first illustration is a son promised a car for his graduation. He has not received it yet, but he is already happy and thankful, because he trusts his father’s word. Prayer, for Murphy, should feel like that: thanks for something promised and not yet seen.

His second is a man out of work, with three children, who for about three weeks repeated a short “Thank you, Father” every night and every morning, in a relaxed, peaceful way, until thankfulness filled his mind, and said it again whenever fear came back. Murphy reports that the man then met a former employer who offered him a post. It is one story, told by the author, with nothing to compare it with: it shows what Murphy taught, not how often such things happen.

In his chapter on happiness, Murphy also recommends giving thanks several times a day. That everyday gratitude, for what is already there, is the part research has studied.

Two kinds of thanks

The same word covers two different exercises. Keeping them apart is the key to reading the evidence fairly.

What gratitude studies found

The best-known experiment is Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough’s, published in 2003: three randomised studies in which some people listed what they were grateful for, weekly or daily, while others listed hassles or neutral events. The gratitude groups showed “heightened well-being across several, though not all, of the outcome measures”. The authors add that the effect on positive affect “appeared to be the most robust finding.”

Later reviews put a size on it. In a 2016 meta-analysis by Davis and colleagues, gratitude exercises beat a measurement-only control on psychological well-being by d = 0.31 (5 studies), but by only 0.17 against another activity, 0.14 against a matched task presumed neutral (listing what you did that day, for instance), and not at all (−0.03) against an exercise expected to improve well-being, such as acts of kindness or imagining your best possible self.

L. R. Dickens’ 2017 series of meta-analyses, covering 38 studies, found improvements in several outcomes, including happiness, but not in others, and concluded that the “unique benefits may be overemphasized.” Looking only at low mood and worry, Cregg and Cheavens pooled 27 studies with 3,675 participants and found, in Cheavens’ words, “a difference, but it was a small difference.”

The honest summary: gratitude exercises have real but modest effects, no larger than those of other exercises designed to improve well-being. None of these studies tests whether thanks changes outside events, which is what Murphy’s technique promises.

Thanking in advance: what the research suggests

Murphy’s technique asks you to feel the reward now, before it exists. No study has tested his exact method, so this part is our reading of the nearest research.

Gabriele Oettingen and her colleague Doris Mayer followed four groups over weeks to two years: graduates looking for a job, students with a crush, students before an exam, and people having a hip replaced. Positive expectations, judging the wished-for future likely, predicted more effort and better performance. Positive fantasies, enjoying thoughts and images of that future, predicted the reverse. In four later experiments with American undergraduates (40 to 164 per study), Heather Kappes and Oettingen found that positive fantasies left people less energized, measured by systolic blood pressure or by self-report, than fantasies that questioned that future, negative fantasies or neutral ones.

Thanks for a future that already feels given looks very much like a positive fantasy: pleasant now, less energising for action. Murphy’s own example points to a better version. The son is thankful because his father keeps his word. That is an expectation grounded in a track record, not a fantasy. Thanks for what you have reason to expect, including what you will do yourself, sits on the side the research favours.

Thanks between people

Murphy’s thanks is addressed inward. Research on couples looks at gratitude aimed at a real person. In a daily diary study of just over 65 cohabiting couples, Algoe, Gable and Maisel found that a day of feeling grateful to one’s partner went with more connection and satisfaction the next day, for both partners.

Algoe later described gratitude’s role in relationships as “find, remind, and bind”: it draws attention to a responsive partner and strengthens the bond. The diary study is correlational and its couples were fairly satisfied, so read it as a direction rather than a rule.

What to keep, and a version for tonight

Keep Murphy’s calm repetition and his idea of thanks as a mood rather than a demand. Change the object: thank for what is real, and for what you can expect because you will act on it.

In Dream Architect, gratitude appears in two places, counted from the app’s content on 20 October 2026. At night, “The feeling” step offers 5 feelings: As if it’s normal, Relief, Ease, Quiet confidence and Gratitude. In the morning, the full morning check-in adds a Gratitude step, “What are you thankful for this morning?”, with 5 choices: A person who matters, A place that grounds you, A tiny moment, Your body and Your effort.

The pairing matches the research better than thanks in advance alone. At night you picture one ordinary moment of the life you want and name the feeling. In the morning you thank for something that actually happened.

• Night: an ordinary moment, such as “I close the laptop at six and call my sister”, with Gratitude as the feeling.
• In the full flow, tomorrow’s sign and one small step: the phone on the table at six; the laptop charger put away.
• Morning, full check-in: Gratitude, A person who matters, the colleague who covered for you yesterday.

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