Meaning in Life Predicts Decreased Depressive Symptoms and Increased Positive Affect over Time but Does not Buffer Stres
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Meaning in Life Predicts Decreased Depressive Symptoms and Increased Positive Affect over Time but Does not Buffer Stress Effects in a National Sample of African‑Americans Crystal L. Park1 · Cheryl L. Knott2 · Randi M. Williams3 · Eddie M. Clark4 · Beverly Rosa Williams5 · Emily Schulz6
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Few studies have specifically focused on meaning in life in African Americans and many important questions remain, including whether effects of meaning in life are direct or moderated by levels of stress. In a national sample of 909 African Americans, we tested meaning in life as a prospective predictor of changes in depressive symptoms and positive affect over a 2.5-year period. Controlling for demographics and hassles, meaning in life predicted decreased depressive symptoms and increased positive affect across the span of 2.5 years. Moderation effects were not found for hassles, age, or income. Gender moderated the effect of meaning on positive affect such that effects were stronger for women than for men. These results suggest that, for African Americans, meaning in life appears to robustly protect against future depressive symptoms and promote positive affect over time unaffected by amount of stress experienced or most demographic factors. Keywords Meaning · Positive affect · Depressive mood · Moderation · Stress
* Crystal L. Park [email protected] 1
University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA
2
Department of Behavioral and Community Health, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
3
Cancer Prevention and Control Program Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA
4
Department of Psychology, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA
5
Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA
6
Department of Occupational Therapy, Northern Arizona University - Phoenix Biomedical Campus, Phoenix, AZ, USA
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1 Introduction Philosophical perspectives have long held that a sense of meaning in life—the sense that one’s life has coherence, purpose and significance (George and Park 2017)—is an important aspect of wellbeing (see Ryff and Singer 2008). In recent decades, empirical research has demonstrated that a sense of meaning in life is consistently and positively associated with a wide range of mental and physical health indicators in many different samples (see Czekierda et al. 2017 for a review), including undergraduates (King et al. 2016; Steger et al. 2009), older adults (Krause 2007), adolescents (Dulaney et al. 2018), middle aged adults (Disabato et al. 2017), and cancer patients (Scrignaro et al. 2015). Much of this work has focused on the inverse relationship between meaning and negative aspects of wellbeing (e.g., suicidality; Marco et al. 2016), although some has demonstrated favorable associations between meaning and positive aspects of wellbeing (e.g., happiness; Cavazos Vela et al. 2015). In spite of increasing research attention, however, many questi
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