The summer 2007 issue of Greater Good magazine, published by the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, surveys new research on gratitude.

The Rev. Susan Gregg-Schroeder is a United Methodist minister in San Diego and coordinator of Mental Health Ministries, an effort that grew from her own experience of depression. She is the author of a paper, “Mental Illness and Families of Faith: How Churches Can Respond.”

Daniel N. McIntosh is a psychology professor at the University of Denver. He has studied autism and the role of religion in family coping with a disabled child and is supervising research on religion and perceptions among parents of children with disabilities.

Carol Goodman Kaufman is a psychologist and author of Sins of Omission: The Jewish Community’s Reaction to Domestic Violence. She was the founding chair of the Domestic Violence Task Force for the Jewish Community of Central Mass. She is based at the Haddassah Institute at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Kathleen V. Hoover-Dempsey is an associate professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She  is co-author (with Christa L. Green) of  the 2007 study “Why Do Parents Homeschool? A Systematic Examination of Parental Involvement.”

Read a July 25, 2007 , Christian Science Monitor article about research on the health benefits of giving.

Read a March 28, 1999, Time magazine article on forgiveness research.

Lorne Ladner is a clinical psychologist, practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism and author of The Lost Art of Compassion: Discovering the Practice of Happiness in the Meeting of Buddhism and Psychology. He teaches at the Guhyasamaja Center in the Washington, D.C., area. He can comment on the significance of gratitude from a psychological and Buddhist perspective.

Paul Wink is a professor of psychology at Wellesley College in Wellesley , Mass. He researches adult development and aging and has studied the effects of religion and spirituality on life development and choices, including religious commitment and altruistic behavior.