Purposefulness and daily life in a pandemic: Predicting daily affect and physical symptoms during the first weeks of the COVID-19 response.
Psychol Health
; 37(8): 985-1001, 2022 08.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1223196
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
Sense of purpose has been associated with greater health and well-being, even in daily contexts. However, it is unclear whether effects would hold in daily life during COVID-19, when people may have difficulty seeing a path towards their life goals.DESIGN:
The current study investigated whether purposefulness predicted daily positive affect, negative affect, and physical symptoms. Participants (n = 831) reported on these variables during the first weeks of the COVID-19 response in North America. MAIN OUTCOMEMEASURES:
Participants completed daily surveys asking them for daily positive events, stressors, positive affect, negative affect, physical symptoms, and purposefulness.RESULTS:
Purposefulness at between- and within-person levels predicted less negative affect and physical symptoms, but more positive affect at the daily level. Between-person purposefulness interacted with positive events when predicting negative and positive affect, suggesting that purposeful people may be less reactive to positive events. However, between-person purposefulness also interacted with daily stressors, insofar that stressors predicted greater declines in positive affect for purposeful people.CONCLUSION:
Being a purposeful person holds positive implications for daily health and well-being, even during the pandemic context. However, purposefulness may hold some consequences unique to the COVID-19 context, which merit attention in future research.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pandemics
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Psychol Health
Journal subject:
Psychology
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
08870446.2021.1914838
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