Brighten Your Day

99 Out Of 100 People Expressed Gratitude When A Door Was Held Open For Them In Social Experiment

August 21, 2016

A man in Halifax, Nova Scotia, wanted to find out if people were thankful for someone holding the door open for them.

The social experiment showed that 99 out of 100 people expressed gratitude.

"I didn't think we were going to get 99. I don't know why, but I was pleasantly surprised ... it went beyond just thank you's. People got into conversations with us," said Steve Foran, CEO of Gratitude at work.

The video was posted to Facebook and YouTube.

"What we know from research is that from grateful people come good things," he said. "A simple way to induce gratitude in people is opening doors and so we went to six places and opened the doors for people."

For the experiment, Foran's team went to a shopping center, a mall, two office buildings, and a coffee shop. The door was held for 15 to 20 people at a time at each location.

"We did have one that didn't say thank you. We're not here to judge them because on any given day, that could be me [or] it could be you ... I suspect of the 100 people, there were probably a bunch of them having a bad day, but grateful people make people grateful," said Foran.