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.

Figure 1. Hypothetical emotional response time courses from four different individuals to an emotionally provocative stimulus, such as a negatively-valenced picture displayed for 4 s as in the present study.

Note that although subjects A and B have similar initial reactivity during the 4 s picture presentation period, after picture offset they differ in emotional recovery. Subject A shows a prolonged poor recovery, whereas Subject B recovers more rapidly. Subject C demonstrates greater initial reactivity with rapid recovery, whereas Subject D exemplifies an individual who may show smaller, blunted emotional reactivity but severely impaired recovery.

Figure 2. Psychophysiology paradigm.

30 positive, 30 negative, and 30 neutral pictures were displayed individually on separate trials. Participants responded as quickly as possible to the border color (purple or yellow) presented during the first 0.5 s of the picture presentation in order to maintain attention during the task. Startle probes were presented at 2900 ms after picture onset (assessing reactivity) and 1900 ms after picture offset (assessing recovery). Note: to avoid publication of an IAPS picture, the example negative picture was selected from the author’s personal collection to be representative of a prototypical IAPS picture. As the mother of the baby in the photograph, she has given written informed consent, as outlined in the PLOS consent form, to publication of their photograph.

Figure 3. Manipulation check.

Emotion modulation was observed in the EBR measures with a significant main effect of valence: EBR magnitude was greater on negative compared to both neutral and positive trials across probe times. A main effect of probe time showed larger EBR magnitude across valences in response to the recovery probe after picture offset when the computer screen was black than to the reactivity probe during the picture presentation (consistent with findings of larger responses to startling stimuli in darkness than in light). Mean EBR magnitude was significantly greater on negative than both neutral and positive trials at the reactivity probe, and greater on negative than positive trials at the recovery probe.

Figure 4. Purpose in life predicts smaller EBR indexing greater recovery after negative picture offset.

Note: (1) EBR values are log-transformed and then z-scored within each participant. (2) The EBR recovery measure here reflects EBR magnitude at the recovery probe regressed on EBR magnitude at the reactivity probe, removing variation due to differences in reactivity. (3) The relation remains significant if the outlier is removed: Purpose in life x EBR negative magnitude residual at recovery r = –0.15, p = 0.03.