Purpose in life and reasons for living as mediators of the relationship between stress, coping, and suicidal behavior

Wang, Mei-Chuan; Lightsey, Owen Richard; Pietruszka, Todd; Uruk, Ayse Ciftci; Wells, Anita G.

doi:10.1080/17439760701228920

Cited by 114 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…For example, in a study investigating the variety of needs that humans aim to fulfill in order to consider their lives meaningful, Crescioni and Baumeister (2013) reported that "when individuals talk of finding meaning in their lives … they seek to interpret their own actions and experiences in terms of an existentially meaningful life story," with "such stories depict [ing] actions and decisions as following from important, stable values and contributing to the fulfillment of one or more crucial goals" (p. 3). In another study investigating whether positive factors (including purpose in life, reasons for living, and coping styles) mediated the relationship between stressful life events and suicidal behaviors among participants (n = 416) in college, Wang, Lightsey, Pietruszka, Uruk, and Wells (2007) reported that "both purpose in life and reasons for living had inverse effects on depression, the higher the purpose in life and reasons for living, the lower the depression, and the lower the relationship between depression and suicidal ideation/behavior," and that accordingly, "purpose in life and reasons for living were found to be important predictors of suicide and may reduce the likelihood of suicidal thoughts and behaviors" (p. 202). Moreover, in other recently published work, Bronk, Hill, Lapsley, Talib, and Finch (2009) investigated the relationship among purpose, hope, and life satisfaction among participants (n = 806) and found that "having identified a purpose in life is associated with greater life satisfaction in adolescence, emerging adulthood, and adulthood" (p. 506), Chamberlain and Zika (1992) investigated religiosity as a predictor of meaning in life in a sample of participants (n = 188) and found that "the relationship between life satisfaction and religiosity may well be mediated by meaningfulness" (p. 415), and Byron and Miller-Perrin (2009) investigated the relationship between faith, life purpose, and wellbeing in participants (n = 103) and found that "faith and life purpose contribute to the development of well-being and may be important characteristics to foster in order to enhance one's personal sense of well-being," and that their "results indicated that life purpose completely mediated the relationship between faith and well-being," which suggests that "the impact of faith on well-being can be explained by life purpose" (p. 68).…”

Section: Flourishing With Music and Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Music practice and participation for psychological well-being: A review of how music influences positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment

2014

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In "Flourish," Martin Seligman maintained that the elements of well-being consist of "PERMA: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment." Although the question of what constitutes human flourishing or psychological well-being has remained a topic of continued debate among scholars, it has recently been argued in the literature that a paradigmatic or prototypical case of human psychological well-being would largely manifest most or all of the aforementioned PERMA factors. Further, in "A Neuroscientific Perspective on Music Therapy," Stefan Koelsch also suggested that "Music therapy can have effects that improve the psychological and physiological health of individuals," so it seems plausible that engaging in practices of music can positively contribute to one living a more optimally flourishing life with greater psychological well-being. However, recent studies on music practice and participation have not yet been reviewed and integrated under the PERMA framework from positive psychology to further explore and explicate this possibility. This article therefore contributes to extant work by reviewing recent research on psychological well-being and music to offer support for the claim that music practice and participation can positively contribute to one living a flourishing life by positively influencing their emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment.

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Section: Flourishing With Music and Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Music practice and participation for psychological well-being: A review of how music influences positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment

2014

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“…More recently, this perspective continues with studies that link lower levels of purpose in life with living with HIV disease (Lyon & Younger, 2001), higher levels of suicidal ideation (Edwards & Holden, 2001), higher levels of general anxiety (Bigler, Neimeyer, & Brown, 2001), higher levels of fear of death and death avoidance (Ardelt, 2003(Ardelt, , 2008, higher levels of depression (Heisel & Flett, 2004;Hedberg, Gustafson, Aléx, & Brulin, 2010), higher risk of suicidal behaviours (Wang, Lightsey, Pietruszka, Uruk, & Wells, 2007), higher risk of psychosis and psychotic episodes (Turner, Jackson, Renwick, Sutton, & Foley, 2007), and higher risk of addiction to substances (Martin, MacKinnon, Johnson, & Rohsenow, 2011).…”

Section: Purpose In Life and Psychological Enquirymentioning

confidence: 99%

Prayer, Personality and Purpose in Life: An Empirical Enquiry among Adolescents in the uk

Francis¹,

Penny²

2016

Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 27

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The linkage between religion and purpose in life is a matter of theoretical interest within the two fields of empirical theology and psychology of religion. Empirical evidence for this linkage remains vulnerable according to the measures of religion and purpose in life employed. Conceptually prayer provides an interesting test of this linkage in light both of the personal nature of this religious activity and of the persistence of prayer among individuals who do not attend worship services. This study draws on data provided by 10,792 13-to 15-year-old students from five different parts of the UK (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and London) to test the connection between prayer and purpose-in-life (assessed by an established single-item measure) after taking into account personal differences (age and sex), psychological differences (Eysenck's three dimensional model of personality), and religious differences (affiliation, and worship attendance). The data demonstrate that prayer frequency adds additional prediction of enhanced levels of purpose in life among young people after taking all other variables into account, and that prayer frequency is a stronger predictor of purpose in life than religious affiliation or worship attendance.

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“…Having reasons for living (i.e., adaptive reasons that support not committing suicide) was protective against female suicidal thoughts and behaviors suicidal ideation and attempt adolescents from various socioeconomic backgrounds and suicidal ideation among urban African American youth [59][60][61]24]. Wang and colleagues found that purpose in life protected a sample of predominantly European and African American adolescents (ethnic differences were not indicated in the results) from suicidal ideation and attempts via an inverse relationship with depression [59]. Lastly, life satisfaction protected male African American adolescents from suicidal ideation and attempts [60].…”

Section: Personal Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fourteen studies reported on the effectiveness of personal factors as being protective against suicidality [2,3,12,15,16,23,24,28,40,46,48,[59][60][61]. Personal factors identified as protective against African American adolescent suicidality were age, self-esteem, emotional well-being, academic achievement/grade point average, hope, ascribing to an adaptive attributional style, avoidance-oriented coping, negative attitude toward suicide acceptability, reasons for living, purpose in life, and life satisfaction.…”

Section: Personal Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Within the realm of coping strategies, ascribing to an adaptive attributional style (i.e., external, unstable, specific attributions for negative events; internal, stable, and global attributions for positive events) protected youth against suicide risk [23]. Avoidance-oriented coping represented another coping strategy that was protective against suicidal ideation and attempts via a positive association with reasons for living [59,61]. Having a negative attitude toward suicide acceptability was protective for female suicidal ideation [40].…”

Section: Personal Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Suicidality Protective Factors for African American Adolescents: A Systematic Review of the Research Literature

Droege¹

2017

SOJNHC

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Overall rates of African American adolescent suicide have been increasing for the past 50 years; however, the research literature examining factors related to suicide for these vulnerable youth is sparse. The shortage of research literature on suicidality protective factors is particularly significant. Little is known about the impact of protective factors on African American youth, especially within subgroups (e.g., gender and socioeconomic status). Approximately 40% of African American youth live in poverty, exposing them to contextual stressors that place them at increased risk for suicidality. Females are significantly more likely to have suicidal ideation and make attempts, whereas males surpass females in their rates of completions. To better understand suicidality protective factors, we conducted a systematic review of the research literature on protective factors for African American adolescents, with a focus on gender differences and urban, low-income youth. This review yielded 26 articles that met inclusion criteria and identified protective factors in the following categories: familial, religiosity-based, relational/social, personal, and socioecological. Gender differences and protective factors for urban, low-income youth are discussed, regarding their role in the prevention of suicidality. This review highlights a need for further research to identify and clarify suicidality protective factors for African American adolescents.

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Purpose in life and reasons for living as mediators of the relationship between stress, coping, and suicidal behavior

Cited by 114 publications

References 31 publications

Music practice and participation for psychological well-being: A review of how music influences positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment

Music practice and participation for psychological well-being: A review of how music influences positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment

Prayer, Personality and Purpose in Life: An Empirical Enquiry among Adolescents in the uk

Suicidality Protective Factors for African American Adolescents: A Systematic Review of the Research Literature

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