You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God (2 Corinthians 9:11–12, NIV).
Some studies have shown that people who believe that God is kind and merciful are likely to show higher levels of gratitude than those who view God as harsh and unrelenting. A study that focused on adolescents showed that dispositional gratitude, the ability to look beyond oneself and to the future, is still developing in 8th and 9th graders (13–15-year-olds) as they figure out how their actions affect others, and this increases as they age.
ValueGenesis 4 Analysis
The ValueGenesis Project is a research effort to help the Seventh-day Adventist Church understand and evaluate the current state of Adventist youth in the North American Division. The project was first launched more than 30 years ago, and the fourth iteration, ValueGenesis 4 (VG4), was launched in October 2021.[i]
The project results show that Seventh-day Adventists scored equally with Catholics and higher than non-Seventh-day Adventist Protestants and non-religious people in gratitude. On a 5-point scale, Adventists and Catholics scored 79.8% of the maximum possible score. Non-Seventh-day Adventist Protestants scored 78%, and non-religious people scored 73.6% of the maximum possible score for gratitude.
Among Seventh-day Adventist participants, the study broke down participants by gender, ethnicity, and region. Female youth scored 80.2% of the maximum, while males scored slightly lower: 79.6%.
When broken down ethnically, White youth scored the highest at 80.8% of the maximum for gratitude, while Asian youth scored slightly lower at 80.4%. Multi-ethnic youth scored 79.4%; Hispanic youth scored 77.8%; and Black youth scored 77.6% of the maximum. Native American youth scored the lowest at 73.6% of the maximum for gratitude.
When compared across regions, youth in the West scored highest with a score of 80.2% of the maximum for gratitude. This may reflect the open culture and strong social support structures in the region. The Northeast scored 79.4%; the South and the Midwest both scored 78.4%, and Canada scored 78%. Guam scored the lowest at 77.4% of the maximum for gratitude.
In conclusion, the data from the ValueGenesis 4 report show that gratitude is closely aligned with religion. Youth who identify as “religious” scored higher on the gratitude scale than “non-religious” youth. Among Adventist youth attending Adventist schools, females scored slightly higher than males. There are slight cultural differences as well, with White and Asian youth scoring higher in gratitude than other ethnic groups. Furthermore, looking at geographic regions, youth in the West region of North America scored higher on the gratitude scale than the other regions. The results are broadly comparable with the ethnic and regional differentiations mostly minor ones.
Understanding these differences can help the Church guide our young people and foster gratitude across ages, genders, cultures, and geography.
“Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Cor. 9:15).
You can access the full report here.
Created in collaboration with the Institute of Church Ministry.
Published by ASTR on 12/31/2024.
[1] https://faithinstitution.org/5-gratitude/