Purpose in life and stress: An individual-participant meta-analysis of 16 samples

Purpose in Daily Life: Considering Within-Person Sense of Purpose Variability

Sense of purpose refers to the extent to which one feels that they have personally meaningful goals and directions guiding them through life. Though this construct predicts a host of benefits, little is known regarding the extent to which sense of purpose fluctuates within an individual and the affective changes tied to those fluctuations. The current study uses daily diary data to addresses this gap by exploring (1) how much sense of purpose and different components of purpose fluctuate from one day to the next, (2) the extent to which these fluctuations correlate with positive and negative affect, and (3) whether dispositional sense of purpose and age correlate with greater variability. Participants (N = 354) reported on their sense of purpose and positive and negative affect every day for 10 days. Results suggest that approximately 45-61% of the variability in sense of purpose scores occurs between-person depending on how it is assessed. Furthermore, the within-person variability in sense of purpose is more strongly correlated with changes in positive affect relative to negative affect. Finally, higher levels of dispositional sense of purpose and age do not appear to be associated with how much variability an individual experiences in their purposefulness from one day to next. The discussion focuses on what these findings mean for the trait-like nature of sense of purpose, short-term sense of purpose measurement, lifespan development, and intervention efforts.

Meaning in life and Parkinson's disease in the UK Biobank

Introduction

Meaning in life is an aspect of eudaimonic well-being associated with lower dementia risk. This research examines whether this protective association extends to Parkinson's disease (PD).

Methods

Participants (N = 153,569) from the UK Biobank reported on their meaning in life. Cases of PD were identified through health records.

Results

Meaning in life was associated with a 50 % lower likelihood of prevalent PD (OR = 0.68, 95 % CI = 0.59-0.78). Over the 5-year follow-up, meaning was associated with a 35 % lower risk of incident PD (HR = 0.74, 95 % CI = 0.65-0.83), an association robust to sociodemographic characteristics, depression, history of seeking mental health care, smoking, physical activity, and genetic risk and not moderated by age, sex, education, deprivation, or genetic risk.

Conclusions

Meaning in life is associated with lower risk of incident PD, an association independent of other major risk factors and generalizable across sociodemographic groups. Meaning is a promising target of intervention for common neurodegenerative diseases.