Purpose in Life Predicts Better Emotional Recovery from Negative Stimuli

Abstract

Purpose in life predicts both health and longevity suggesting that the ability to find meaning from life’s experiences, especially when confronting life’s challenges, may be a mechanism underlying resilience. Having purpose in life may motivate reframing stressful situations to deal with them more productively, thereby facilitating recovery from stress and trauma. In turn, enhanced ability to recover from negative events may allow a person to achieve or maintain a feeling of greater purpose in life over time. In a large sample of adults (aged 36-84 years) from the MIDUS study (Midlife in the U.S., http://www.midus.wisc.edu/), we tested whether purpose in life was associated with better emotional recovery following exposure to negative picture stimuli indexed by the magnitude of the eyeblink startle reflex (EBR), a measure sensitive to emotional state. We differentiated between initial emotional reactivity (during stimulus presentation) and emotional recovery (occurring after stimulus offset). Greater purpose in life, assessed over two years prior, predicted better recovery from negative stimuli indexed by a smaller eyeblink after negative pictures offset, even after controlling for initial reactivity to the stimuli during the picture presentation, gender, age, trait affect, and other well-being dimensions. These data suggest a proximal mechanism by which purpose in life may afford protection from negative events and confer resilience is through enhanced automatic emotion regulation after negative emotional provocation.

Psychological resources and glucoregulation in Japanese adults: Findings from MIDJA.

“…In prior research, individuals with greater purpose in life prospectively demonstrated reduced risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, metabolic syndrome, cerebral infarcts, Alzheimer disease pathology, and mortality and also increased use of preventative health services (Boehm & Kubzansky, 2012; Boylan & Ryff, 2015; Boyle et al, 2012; Cohen, Bavishi, & Rozanski, 2016; Hill & Turiano, 2014; Kim, Strecher, et al, 2014; Kim et al, 2012, 2013; Ryff, 2014; Yu et al, 2015). Purpose in life has been linked with healthier automatic emotion regulation strategies (Schaefer et al, 2013) and sustained activity in reward circuitry (Heller et al, 2013), which may function as neural mechanisms linking purpose in life to physical health outcomes. Given the specificity of the inverse association between HbA1c to purpose in life, this construct may be ubiquitously protective across a number of physical health domains, and efforts to increase purpose in life, perhaps via volunteering or finding work in retirement (Barron et al, 2009; Greenfield & Marks, 2004; Weiss, Bass, Heimovitz, & Oka, 2005), may yield important physical health benefits across cultural contexts.…”

Childhood socioeconomic status and cardiovascular reactivity and recovery among Black and White men: Mitigating effects of psychological resources.

“…Psychological resources may represent the intrapersonal piece of reserve capacity, and together with other tangible and interpersonal resources, help low SES individuals cope with stressors (Gallo & Matthews, 2003). Regarding potential top-down mechanisms, psychological well-being, including purpose in life, has been linked to healthier brain functioning, such as greater left (than right) prefrontal activation profiles (Urry et al, 2004), faster automatic recovery from negative emotional stimuli (Schaefer et al, 2013), and sustained striatal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity following positive stimuli (Heller et al, 2013). Together, the data support salubrious effects of psychological resources, and the moderation findings add to a growing body of literature that such resources are especially important for health among individuals with low, but not high, SES (Lachman & Weaver, 1998; Morozink et al, 2010; Turiano et al, 2014).…”

Comment: Affective Chronometry Has Come of Age

“…In Heller et al (2013) we showed that participants with longer duration ventral striatal responding to positive stimuli reported higher levels of psychological wellbeing and also showed lower levels of cortisol. In Schaefer et al (2013) we reported that participants with higher scores on the Purpose in Life subscale of wellbeing display faster recovery from negative stimuli. Are there other important metrics of affective chronometry that are associated with psychological and physical health?…”