Sports Psychiatry · Published 2026-06-01 · DOI 10.1024/2674-0052/a000134
Derek H. Suite, Anne Shadle, Maha Eladawy
Abstract: Introduction: Gratitude is one of the oldest and most intuitively appealing human practices, often believed to steady perspective, strengthen relationships, and cultivate resilience. Yet in sport science, empirical evidence linking gratitude to measurable performance or recovery outcomes remains scarce, inconsistent, or null. This paradox, of widespread cultural and experiential confidence alongside modest scientific support, underscores the need for a disciplined, mechanism-focused examination of what gratitude contributes to the mental toughness of elite performers, if anything. Methods: This conceptual review synthesizes insights from gratitude science, organizational psychology, affective neuroscience, lifestyle medicine, and sport psychiatry to propose the Gratitude–Resilience–Lifestyle Regulation–Performance Pathway, a testable framework describing how gratitude-related appraisals may influence cognitive, emotional, relational, and behavioral processes associated with resilience and mental toughness. The manuscript also addresses major methodological challenges, including measurement limitations (five-item Gratitude Questionnaire [GQ-5], Gratitude Questionnaire–Specific [GQ-S], Profile of Mood States [POMS]), cultural variability, conceptual redundancy, and feasibility constraints in elite environments. Results: The model emphasizes relational meaning-making rather than emotional uplift and outlines four hypothesized mechanisms: appraisal recalibration, affective stabilization, relational interpretation, and behavioral consistency. Because meta-analytic findings outside of sport show no reliable physiological effects (sleep architecture, heart rate variability [HRV], inflammation), all physiological pathways are treated as speculative hypotheses rather than established mechanisms. Practice-based illustrative cases demonstrate potential applications while explicitly acknowledging alternative explanations. Conclusions: The model generates falsifiable predictions and provides a road map for rigorous, athlete-specific testing aimed at determining whether gratitude holds any unique explanatory value within the broader mental toughness ecosystem. The goal is not to claim that gratitude enhances performance, recovery, or resilience, but to clarify whether its relational and cognitive microprocesses deserve a place in the science of elite sport, or whether its influence, despite cultural popularity, is negligible when examined under the methodological precision athletes require.
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Suite, D., Shadle, A., Eladawy, M. (2026). Gratitude-driven resilience: a conceptual lifestyle pathway for mental toughness in elite athletes. Sports Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1024/2674-0052/a000134