The feeling of gratitude can help people resist temptation, according to a new study published in the journal Psychological Science.

Even more than happiness:

The results demonstrated that people who were either happy or neutral showed a strong preference for having less money but getting it now.

This is the usual situation: most people don’t want to wait.

The people in the gratitude condition, though, showed much more restraint and were willing to wait for a larger gain.

And, the more gratitude they felt, the greater their patience for the larger reward.

i especially like this:

"We don’t know exactly why gratitude has this effect, but it may be because it makes us feel more social, co-operative and altruistic.

In other words: gratitude may make us feel less selfish, which gives us more patience."