Be grateful. That’s been my science-backed mantra for a good many years. I say science-backed because unlike the rationale your parents relied on when urging you to be appreciative (though they were right!), my advice comes from more than a decade of accumulating empirical evidence showing that gratitude makes life better.

But while it can help combat stress and depression, improve your diet, and even get you to the gym, perhaps one of the most important ways gratitude improves life is through fostering cooperation—a phenomenon so integral to human existence that we would have been hard-pressed to achieve much of what we’ve accomplished as a species without it.

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