While we’re on money: Because it makes us less grabby, gratitude can pay. Northeastern University psychologist David DeSteno led a study that found that feeling grateful makes people more patient, allowing them to resist instant gratification, and potentially make better financial decisions. Subjects were offered a small sum of money immediately, or a larger sum if they waited three months to collect it. Those who were feeling grateful were more willing to wait — longer than merely happy people — for the bigger payoff.

That makes for better investing, and fewer Black Friday impulse buys. As DeSteno put it in a recent New York Times essay, “the solution to the shopping season’s excesses may lie in the very message of Thanksgiving itself.”

Boston Globe