A brief life-purpose intervention reduces trauma-film anxiety and rumination.

Abstract

Although there is accumulating evidence for an inverse relation between life meaning and anxiety, most of this research has used cross-sectional designs. We examined the relation between life meaning and anxiety with an experimental design (N = 103), hypothesizing that compared to control, a brief life-purpose intervention administered after a film stressor would result in less anxiety and film-related rumination and that anxiety would mediate the intervention-rumination relation. After viewing a validated “trauma film” depicting a racially motivated physical assault, participants completed either a life-purpose intervention comprised of reading about life meaning and writing about intrinsically valued goals or one of two control groups consisting of either a distracting theme (computers) or a threat-relevant theme (racial equality), both designed to be engaging without evoking life purpose. Results showed that compared to control, the life-purpose participants reported less postintervention anxiety and film-related rumination and that the intervention effect on rumination was mediated by anxiety. The findings support the promise of meaning interventions for stressor-related responses.