Search

Theoretically, purpose serves as a basic dimension of healthy psychological functioning and an important protective factor from psychopathology. Theory alone, however, is insufficient to answer critical questions about human behavior and functioning; we require empirical evidence that explores the parameters of purpose with respect to measurement, prediction, and modification. Here, we provide empirically supported insights about how purpose can operate as a beneficial outcome (e.g., marker of well-being), a predictor or mechanism that accounts for benefits that a person derives (such as from an intervention), or a moderator that offers insight into when benefits arise. Advancing the study of purpose requires careful consideration of how purpose is conceptualized, manipulated, and measured across the lifespan. Our aim is to help scientists understand, specify, and conduct high-quality studies of purpose in life. Public Significance Statement: This article reviews and synthesizes what is known about the nature and benefits of human beings possessing and working toward a purpose in life. We detail the various ways that a purpose can serve a person and the specific ways that psychologists and other mental health professionals can study and target this highly desirable psychological resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological flexibility (PF), defined as the ability to pursue valued life aims despite the presence of distress, is a fundamental contributor to health (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010). Existing measures of PF have failed to consider the valued goals that give context for why people are willing to manage distress. Using 4 independent samples and 3 follow-up samples, we examined the role of PF in well-being, emotional experience and regulation, resilience, goal pursuit, and daily functioning. We describe the development and psychometric properties of the Personalized Psychological Flexibility Index (PPFI), which captures tendencies to avoid, accept, and harness discomfort during valued goal pursuit. Correlational, laboratory, and experience-sampling methods show that the PPFI measures a trait-like individual difference dimension that is related to a variety of well-being and healthy personality constructs. Unlike existing measures of PF, the PPFI was shown to be distinct from negative emotionality. Beyond trait measures, the PPFI is associated with effective daily goals and life strivings pursuit and adaptive emotional and regulatory responses to stressful life events. By adopting our measurement index, PF may be better integrated into mainstream theory and research on adaptive human functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three studies using samples of people in romantic relationships were conducted to create a new individual difference measure of partner strengths in couples. The 2 perceptions of partner strengths included (1) appreciation of their use and effectiveness and (2) recognition of costs associated with their use. Factor analyses supported 2-factors and we found that greater appreciation of partner strengths predicted greater relationship satisfaction, commitment, investment, intimacy, self-expansion, and support for goal pursuit; recognizing significant costs with partner strengths was inversely related to several outcomes. Using a 1-week daily diary, we found that appreciation of partner strength use and recognition of costs associated with these strengths predicted daily relationship satisfaction and whether basic psychological needs were met within the relationship. The explanatory power of partner strength perceptions could not be explained by the actual character strengths or Big Five personality traits of partners, support for positive self-disclosures (capitalization), or gratitude for relationship partners. Finally, we found that the relational consequences of partner strength perceptions were not just "in the head" of the perceiver-influencing partner relational outcomes. This research program provides evidence for the use of a new measure of how strengths are perceived to better understand romantic couples and aspirational targets in clinical interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dominant theoretical models of social anxiety disorder (SAD) suggest that people who suffer from function-impairing social fears are likely to react more strongly to social stressors. Researchers have examined the reactivity of people with SAD to stressful laboratory tasks, but there is little knowledge about how stress affects their daily lives. We asked 79 adults from the community, 40 diagnosed with SAD and 39 matched healthy controls, to self-monitor their social interactions, social events, and emotional experiences over 2 weeks using electronic diaries. These data allowed us to examine associations of social events and emotional well-being both within-day and from one-day to the next. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we found all participants to report increases in negative affect and decreases in positive affect and self-esteem on days when they experienced more stressful social events. However, people with SAD displayed greater stress sensitivity, particularly in negative emotion reactions to stressful social events, compared to healthy controls. Groups also differed in how previous days' events influenced sensitivity to current days' events. Moreover, we found evidence of stress generation in that the SAD group reported more frequent interpersonal stress, though temporal analyses did not suggest greater likelihood of social stress on days following intense negative emotions. Our findings support the role of heightened social stress sensitivity in SAD, highlighting rigidity in reactions and occurrence of stressful experiences from one day to the next. These findings also shed light on theoretical models of emotions and self-esteem in SAD and present important clinical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increased attention that researchers have paid to social anxiety disorder (SAD), compared with other anxiety and mood disorders, relatively little is known about the emotional and social factors that distinguish individuals who meet diagnostic criteria from those who do not. In this study, participants with and without a diagnosis of SAD (generalized subtype) described their daily face-to-face social interactions for 2 weeks using handheld computers. We hypothesized that, compared with healthy controls, individuals diagnosed with SAD would experience fewer positive emotions, rely more on experiential avoidance (of anxiety), and have greater self-control depletion (feeling mentally and physically exhausted after socializing), after accounting for social anxiety, negative emotions, and feelings of belonging during social interactions. We found that compared with healthy controls, indi-viduals with SAD experienced weaker positive emotions and greater experiential avoidance, but there were no differences in self-control depletion between groups. Moreover, the differences we found could not be attributed to comorbid anxiety or depressive disorders. Our results suggest that negative emotions alone do not fully distinguish normal from pathological social anxiety, and that assessing social anxiety disorder should include impairments in positive emotional experiences and dysfunctional emotion regulation (in the form of experiential avoidance) in social situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dysfunctional social behavior has been implicated in the experience of depression. People with higher levels of depressive symptoms report more frequent negative social interactions and react more strongly to them. It remains unknown, however, whether reaction strength differs depending on whether social interactions are positive or negative. Drawing on socioevolutionary models of depression (N. B. Allen & P. B. 1. Badcock, 2003), the authors propose that people with higher levels of depressive symptoms should react more strongly not only to negative social interactions but also to positive social interactions and a sense of belonging. Using nonclinical samples, 2 daily process studies examined the role of depression in people's reactivity to social interactions in natural, ongoing, social contexts. In Study 1, the number of positive and negative social events showed a stronger relation to well-being among people with higher levels of depressive symptoms. Study 2 extended this finding to perceptions of belonging in memorable social interactions, finding a stronger link between belonging and well-being among people with higher levels of depressive symptoms. Together these studies provide the first indication that depressive symptoms may sensitize people to everyday experiences of both social rejection and social acceptance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is easy to criticize psychologist Thomas Kuhn's argument that scientific progress is basically nonlinear when in fact the annals of psychological knowledge have accumulated by both incremental and disruptive means. Perhaps of greater interest is psychologist E. Driver-Linn's use of Kuhn's work to highlight two areas in need of redress in the field of psychology. First, there is an overemphasis on specialization at the expense of breadth, thereby leading to disciplinary boundaries that interfere with scientific progress. Second, there are no objective truths in psychological science, and there is merit in further acknowledging the approximations and fallibility of empirical findings. In light of the wide usage and citation of Kuhn's work, authors applaud Driver-Linn's efforts to encourage further consideration of Kuhn's pointed criticisms of psychological science. In the hope of enlarging the deserved attention to Kuhn's work, authors focus on two additional considerations, risk-aversive tendencies to examine problems in which answers tend to be known in advance and a stubborn refusal to discard or modify dominant theoretical frameworks.

Comments on a study that characterized curiosity as a self-regulatory mechanism that facilitates intrinsic goal effort, perseverance, personal growth and under the right conditions, creativity. Description of curiosity; Important step in advancing the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the development of creativity; Correlation of emotional-motivational state of curiosity and perceptual conflicts.

A large international sample was used to test whether hedonia (the experience of positive emotional states and satisfaction of desires) and eudaimonia (the presence of meaning and development of one's potentials) represent 1 overarching well-being construct or 2 related dimensions. A latent correlation of .96 presents negligible evidence for the discriminant validity between Diener's (1984) subjective well-being model of hedonia and Ryff's (1989) psychological well-being model of eudaimonia. When compared with known correlates of well-being (e.g., curiosity, gratitude), eudaimonia and hedonia showed very similar relationships, save goal-directed will and ways (i.e., hope), a meaning orientation to happiness, and grit. Identical analyses in subsamples of 7 geographical world regions revealed similar results around the globe. A single overarching construct more accurately reflects hedonia and eudaimonia when measured as self-reported subjective and psychological well-being. Nevertheless, measures of eudaimonia may contain aspects of meaningful goal-directedness unique from hedonia. (PsycINFO Database Record [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terror management theory posits that people tend to respond defensively to reminders of death, including worldview defense, self-esteem striving, and suppression of death thoughts. Seven experiments examined whether trait mindfulness—a disposition characterized by receptive attention to present experience—reduced defensive responses to mortality salience (MS). Under MS, less mindful individuals showed higher worldview defense (Studies 1-3) and self-esteem striving (Study 5), yet more mindful individuals did not defend a constellation of values theoretically associated with mindfulness (Study 4). To explain these findings through proximal defense processes, Study 6 showed that more mindful individuals wrote about their death for a longer period of time, which partially mediated the inverse association between trait mindfulness and worldview defense. Study 7 demonstrated that trait mindfulness predicted less suppression of death thoughts immediately following MS. The discussion highlights the relevance of mindfulness to theories that emphasize the nature of conscious processing in understanding responses to threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judgments about the self compared to internalized standards are central to theoretical frameworks of social anxiety. Yet, empirical research on social comparisons-how people view themselves relative to others-and social anxiety is sparse. This research program examines the nature of everyday social comparisons in the context of social anxiety across 2 experience-sampling studies containing 8,396 unique entries from 273 adults. Hypotheses and analyses were preregistered with the Open Science Foundation (OSF) prior to data analysis. Study 1 was a 3-week daily diary study with undergraduates, and Study 2 was a 2-week ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study with a clinical sample of adults diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and a psychologically healthy comparison group. In both studies, social anxiety was associated with less favorable, more unstable social comparisons. In both studies, favorable social comparisons were associated with higher positive affect and lower negative affect and social anxiety. In both studies, social comparisons and momentary affect/social anxiety were more strongly linked in people with elevated trait social anxiety/SAD compared to less socially anxious participants. Participants in Study 2-even those with SAD-made more favorable social comparisons when they were with other people than when alone. Taken together, results suggest that social anxiety is associated with unfavorable, unstable self-views that are linked to compromised well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much is known about the types of strategies people use to regulate emotions. Less is known about individual differences that influence emotion regulation strategy selection. In this study, we tested the moderating role of negative emotion differentiation (NED; i.e., the ability to label and describe subtle differences among negative emotions) on the relationship between the intensity of stressful daily events and the strategies used to regulate distress arising from these events. Prior research shows that NED is associated with low endorsement of disengagement emotion regulation (e.g., substance use), but less is known about the link to engagement regulation (e.g., problem-solving, seeking social support). Participants were college students ( N = 502) completing a 30-day daily diary survey for each of four college years. We preregistered hypotheses that 1) the intensity of each day's most stressful event would be associated with greater use of disengagement and engagement regulation strategies, and 2) people higher in NED would be less likely to use disengagement and more likely to use engagement strategies when highly stressed. Results suggest that higher stress intensity is associated with greater use of all regulation strategies. Greater NED is associated with less use of disengagement regulation strategies, whereas NED was unrelated to engagement regulation strategies and did not moderate the relationship between stress and engagement strategies. The majority of hypothesized moderation effects of NED were nonsignificant, prompting a reconsideration of whether, when, and how NED plays a role in stress responding. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

This study examines relationships between emotion beliefs and emotion regulation strategy use among people with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and a psychologically healthy control group. Using experience-sampling methodology, we tested group differences in 2 types of emotion beliefs (emotion control values and emotion malleability beliefs) and whether emotion beliefs predicted trait and daily use of cognitive reappraisal and emotion suppression. People with SAD endorsed higher emotion control values and lower emotion malleability beliefs than did healthy controls. Across groups, emotion control values were positively associated with suppression (but unrelated to reappraisal), and emotion malleability beliefs were negatively associated with suppression and positively associated with reappraisal. We also addressed 2 exploratory questions related to measurement. First, we examined whether trait and state measures of emotion regulation strategies were related to emotion control values in different ways and found similar associations across measures. Second, we examined whether explicit and implicit measures of emotion control values were related to daily emotion regulation strategy use in different ways-and found that an implicit measure was unrelated to strategy use. Results are discussed in the context of growing research on metaemotions and the measurement of complex features of emotion regulation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Understanding how individuals with varying levels of social anxiety respond to daily positive events is important. Psychological processes that increase positive emotions are being widely used as strategies to not only enhance well-being but also reduce the symptoms and impairment tied to negative emotional dispositions and conditions, including excessive social anxiety. At present, it is unclear whether and how levels of social anxiety impact the psychological benefits derived from momentary positive events. We used ecological momentary assessment to examine the impact of trait social anxiety on momentary changes in emotions, sense of belonging, and social approach versus avoidance motivation following positive events in daily life. Over the course of a week, people with elevated social anxiety experienced greater momentary anxiety and social avoidance motivation and lower momentary happiness and sense of belonging on average. Despite these impairments, individuals with elevated social anxiety experienced greater psychological benefits-in the form of reduced anxiety and motivation to avoid social situations, and an increased sense of belonging-following positive events during the past hour that were rated as particularly intense. This pattern of findings was not specific to social anxiety, with evidence of similar effects for other forms of internalizing psychopathology (general anxiety and depression). These observations detail circumstances in which individuals with social anxiety, and other emotional disturbances, can thrive-creating potentially important targets for intervention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Sex is rarely discussed in theories of well-being and rarely empirically examined using methods other than cross-sectional surveys. In the present study, a daily diary approach was used (for 21 days with 152 adults) to explore the relationship between the presence and quality of sexual episodes and well-being (positive affect, negative affect, meaning in life). Time-lagged analyses demonstrated that sexual activity on 1 day was related to greater well-being the next. As for the quality of episodes, higher reported sexual pleasure and intimacy predicted greater positive affect and lower negative affect the following day. When the reverse direction was tested, well-being did not predict next-day sexual activity, pleasure, or intimacy. These results suggest a unidirectional relationship in which the presence and quality of sexual activity lead to gains in well-being the following day. Contextual moderators (gender, relationship status, relationship closeness, and relationship length) allowed for tests of conditions altering the link between sexuality and well-being. Relationship closeness was the most robust moderator in predicting greater levels of meaning in life and positive affect following sexual episodes. These data provide evidence to support the continual consideration of sex in empirical work and theoretical models of elements that comprise healthy relationships and a good life. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

Experiential avoidance (EA), the tendency to avoid internal, unwanted thoughts and feelings, is hypothesized to be a risk factor for social anxiety. Existing studies of experiential avoidance rely on trait measures with minimal contextual consideration. In two studies, we examined the association between experiential avoidance and anxiety within real-world social interactions. In the first study, we examined the effect of experiential avoidance on social anxiety in everyday life. For 2 weeks, 37 participants with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and 38 healthy controls provided reports of experiential avoidance and social anxiety symptoms during face-to-face social interactions. Results showed that momentary experiential avoidance was positively related to anxiety symptoms during social interactions and this effect was stronger among people with SAD. People low in EA showed greater sensitivity to the level of situational threat than high EA people. In the second study, we facilitated an initial encounter between strangers. Unlike Study 1, we experimentally created a social situation where there was either an opportunity for intimacy (self-disclosure conversation) or no such opportunity (small-talk conversation). Results showed that greater experiential avoidance during the self-disclosure conversation temporally preceded increases in social anxiety for the remainder of the interaction; no such effect was found in the small-talk conversation. Our findings provide insight into the association between experiential avoidance on social anxiety in laboratory and naturalistic settings, and demonstrate that the effect of EA depends upon level of social threat and opportunity.

The ability to recognize and label emotional experiences has been associated with well-being and adaptive functioning. This skill is particularly important in social situations, as emotions provide information about the state of relationships and help guide interpersonal decisions, such as whether to disclose personal information. Given the interpersonal difficulties linked to social anxiety disorder (SAD), deficient negative emotion differentiation may contribute to impairment in this population. We hypothesized that people with SAD would exhibit less negative emotion differentiation in daily life, and these differences would translate to impairment in social functioning. We recruited 43 people diagnosed with generalized SAD and 43 healthy adults to describe the emotions they experienced over 14 days. Participants received palmtop computers for responding to random prompts and describing naturalistic social interactions; to complete end-of-day diary entries, they used a secure online website. We calculated intraclass correlation coefficients to capture the degree of differentiation of negative and positive emotions for each context (random moments, face-to-face social interactions, and end-of-day reflections). Compared to healthy controls, the SAD group exhibited less negative (but not positive) emotion differentiation during random prompts, social interactions, and (at trend level) end-of-day assessments. These differences could not be explained by emotion intensity or variability over the 14 days, or to comorbid depression or anxiety disorders. Our findings suggest that people with generalized SAD have deficits in clarifying specific negative emotions felt at a given point of time. These deficits may contribute to difficulties with effective emotion regulation and healthy social relationship functioning.

Recent acceptance- and mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral interventions explicitly target the clarification and commitment to a purpose in life. Yet, scant empirical evidence exists on the value of purpose as a mechanism relevant to psychopathology or well-being. The present research explored daily (within-person) fluctuations in purposeful pursuits and well-being in a community sample of 84 adults with (n = 41) and without (n = 43) the generalized subtype of social anxiety disorder (SAD). After completing an idiographic measure of purpose in life, participants monitored their effort and progress toward this purpose, along with their well-being each day. Across 2 weeks of daily reports, we found that healthy controls reported increased self-esteem, meaning in life, positive emotions, and decreased negative emotions. People with SAD experienced substantial boosts in well-being indicators on days characterized by significant effort or progress toward their life purpose. We found no evidence for the reverse direction (with well-being boosting the amount of effort or progress that people with SAD devote to their purpose), and effects could not be attributed to comorbid mood or anxiety disorders. Results provide evidence for how commitment to a purpose in life enriches the daily existence of people with SAD. The current study supports principles that underlie what many clinicians are already doing with clients for SAD.

Anger is commonly associated with aggression. Inefficient anger-coping strategies increase negative affect and deplete the regulatory resources needed to control aggressive impulses. Factors linked with better emotion regulation may then weaken the relationship between anger and aggression. The current work explored one factor associated with emotion regulation-differentiating one's emotions into discrete categories-that may buffer angry people from aggression. Three diary studies (N = 628) tested the hypothesis that emotion differentiation would weaken the relationship between anger and aggression. In Study 1, participants high in emotion differentiation reported less daily aggressive tendencies when angry, compared to low differentiators. In Study 2, compared to low differentiators, high differentiators reported less frequent provocation in daily life and less daily aggression in response to being provoked and feeling intense anger. Study 3 showed that high daily emotional control mediated the interactive effect of emotion differentiation and anger on aggression. These results highlight the importance of considering how angry people differentiate their emotions in predicting their aggressive responses to anger., ((PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).)

The limitations of paper-and-pencil self-monitoring (PM) are leading to the use of more sophisticated techniques. PM was compared with cellular phone monitoring (CM) to collect ecological momentary assessment data on alcohol use. Twenty social drinkers were randomly assigned to the 2 groups, and their drinking was monitored for 14 days. PM participants recorded data on cards. CM participants carried telephones and responded to an interactive voice response system. The authors found few significant group differences in alcohol use, compliance with the self-monitoring, and satisfaction. However, CM had useful advantages, including instantaneous entry of data into a central database, date and time stamping of data, and easy integration into daily life. Although preliminary, this study suggests that CM is a promising alternative to PM.