This week in Davos, Donald Trump said that, “Canada should be grateful” to the United States because of the security and ‘freebies’ it provides. In the same speech he slammed ‘ungrateful’ Denmark for refusing to give up Greenland.
A year earlier in The White House, US Vice President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing him of not showing gratitude, to which Trump added, “You have to be thankful, you don’t have the cards.”
Gratitude, it seems, is no longer just a virtue or a social etiquette. It has become something closer to a demand.
Should you ever tell people they need to be grateful?
Parents certainly try. From an early age, children are coached – sometimes gently, sometimes through clenched teeth – to say thank you. A gift is handed over, a service provided, and the cue follows almost automatically: “What do you say?”
The intention is noble. Gratitude, after all, is associated with empathy, social awareness, and good manners. But even in childhood, the difference between learning gratitude and performing it under instruction is obvious. A muttered “thanks” on command is rarely the same as genuine appreciation.
That tension becomes more pronounced in adulthood, particularly in workplaces and public life. Gratitude can motivate, bond, and uplift. But it can also be weaponised, hollowed out, and turned into a form of control.
Business school research validates that distinction, and the conclusions are surprisingly consistent. Gratitude works best when it is freely expressed and modelled from the top. When it is demanded, prescribed, or used to shut down dissent, it often backfires.
The science of genuine gratitude
Psychologists and scholars have long been interested in why gratitude is so powerful when it is authentic. Robert Emmons, a professor at UC Davis, one of the leading researchers in the field, has shown that experiencing and expressing gratitude is linked to higher wellbeing, better relationships, and greater resilience. In organisational settings, gratitude strengthens social bonds by signalling that effort has been noticed and valued.
Adam Grant’s research at Wharton provides one of the most cited workplace examples. In a study of university fundraisers, ‘A Little Thanks Goes. Long Way,’ Grant and Francesca Gino examined the effects of gratitude on their work soliciting donations. They found that employees who received sincere expressions of gratitude were significantly more likely to help others and increase effort.
“A sense of appreciation is the single most sustainable motivator at work,” Grant says.
But it is entirely different telling people they should be grateful.
When gratitude turns into obligation
Being told to feel a certain way is rarely effective. Psychologists refer to this as reactance. When people sense that their autonomy is being threatened, they push back, even against things that are objectively good for them. Gratitude is no exception.
Such prescribed gratitude in organisations can trigger cynicism, particularly when there is a mismatch between rhetoric and reality. If leaders talk endlessly about being thankful while ignoring excessive workloads, low pay, or unfair treatment, employees are likely to interpret their thanks as performative at best and manipulative at worst.
This is where the idea of “weaponised gratitude” enters the conversation. Telling employees they should be grateful to have a job during layoffs, or reminding overstretched teams how lucky they are during a period of burnout, does not foster appreciation. It reframes legitimate concerns as moral failings.
The backfire effect is especially pronounced in high-stress or toxic environments. When work is genuinely exploitative, asking people to “focus on the positives” can feel like gaslighting. Employees know when gratitude is being used to gloss over structural problems, and the emotional labour of pretending otherwise adds to the strain.
Gratitude as a signal of dominance
Experts tend to converge on a strikingly similar reading of Donald Trump’s habit of demanding gratitude. They see it less as a social nicety gone wrong and more as a deliberate power move.
Political psychologists note that Trump’s language around gratitude almost always flows upward, never outward. He does not ask whether an action was mutually beneficial. Instead, he frames it as a favour granted by a superior party.
This aligns with what leadership scholars describe as status assertion. In Social Hierachy: The Self-Reinforcing Nature of Power and Status, Joe C. Magee, Professor of Management and Organizations at NYU Stern, and Adam Galinsky, Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School show how powerful actors use moral and relational language to reinforce hierarchy. Gratitude expectations are a classic mechanism for converting power into perceived legitimacy.
By saying someone should be grateful, Trump implicitly positions himself as the benefactor and the other party as dependent, even when the relationship may in reality be reciprocal.
Deborah Gruenfeld, Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley Berkeley have examined how power influences behaviour. Dominant leaders often use moral language – things like appreciation, respect, and loyalty – to convert power asymmetries into moral obligations.
So gratitude becomes proof of submission rather than a response to generosity.
A loyalty test disguised as etiquette
Negotiation experts often interpret Trump’s gratitude demands as public loyalty tests. By calling out perceived ingratitude, especially on stage and in front of cameras, he forces counterparts into a narrow set of responses. You have to either comply, flatter, or risk escalation.
This tactic has been analysed extensively by scholars at Harvard. Game theory pioneer, Thomas Schelling, the Nobel laureate economist who was a major figure in shaping the modern Harvard Kennedy School introduced the idea of public commitments and symbolic compliance. For the author of ‘The Strategy of Conflict”, gratitude when demanded publicly, functions as a low-cost loyalty signal.
Once gratitude is framed as a moral duty, refusal to perform it looks unreasonable or even hostile. That is why Trump’s comments frequently come after support has already been given. The demand is symbolic, and asks, “Do you acknowledge who holds the upper hand?”
Some analysts are careful to point out that this technique can be effective in the short term. In transactional environments it can extract public concessions, force rapid alignment and discourage open disagreement
Organisational behaviour scholars compare it to what they call coercive gratitude framing. The immediate compliance may look like respect, but it is closer to risk management. People perform gratitude to avoid punishment, not because they feel it.
This helps explain why Trump often appears satisfied once gratitude is verbally expressed, even if nothing substantive changes.
But there may well be a long-term cost.
Don’t try this at work
Research consistently shows that leaders who demand gratitude reduce psychological safety, engagement drops, candour disappears, and resentment grows beneath the surface
If people genuinely have something to be grateful for, they usually don’t need to be told. And if they don’t feel grateful, insisting that they should rarely changes their mind. It changes their willingness to speak honestly.
By contrast, leaders who express gratitude without expectation of return, build loyalty that is voluntary rather than coerced.
Which brings us back to the curious spectacle of leaders telling others to be more appreciative. There is something comic about demanding gratitude while rarely displaying it yourself.
The contrast is particularly striking when set against one of the most familiar sign-offs in modern political correspondence, a line posted on Truth Social that has become emblematic of Donald Trump’s administrative style.
“THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.”
About the author
Matt Symonds is Chief Editor of BlueSky Thinking, and host of BlueSky Media Connect, bringing together b-schools and universities to meet editors from FT, BBC, Bloomberg, WSJ, The Economist, NYTimes and other global / regional media.
He is the S of QS, co-founding QS Quacquarelli Symonds, publishers of the QS World University Rankings. Matt I also co-Founder and Director of Fortuna Admissions, a coaching dream team of former business school and university admissions professionals from top-tier institutions, including Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, INSEAD, LBS, Chicago Booth, Columbia, Northwestern Kellogg, Berkeley Haas.
Matt co-host the CentreCourt MBA & Masters Festivals with John A. Byrne and Poets & Quants. Author of the international bestseller, “Getting the MBA Admissions Edge” sponsored by Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Bain, BCG, he writes about Higher Education and management for BBC, Times of India and formerly Forbes, The Economist and Bloomberg.
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