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Definitions
Purpose here refers to a sense of clarity concerning personally meaningful aims and values that one is able to apply in daily life. Heightened states of purpose thus foster the self-perception that one both has aims and values and is also able to embody them. This self-perception, in turn, leads one to perceive meaning and significance in one’s life and pursuits. States of diminished purpose may involve a lack of clarity concerning one’s aims and values, or the perception that one has clear values and aims yet is unable to embody them.

Relation to Well-Being
Purpose and meaning in life shape our personal narratives and are associated with a range of outcomes related to psychological well-being and physical health A strong sense of purpose is associated with improved health outcomes and behaviors, including: increased physical activity decreased incidence of stroke reduced risk of death Purpose in life predicts allostatic load ten years later Purpose is also central to healthy psychological functioning, including memory, executive function, and overall cognitive ability and psychological resilience across the life span Psychobiology and molecular genetics of resilience In a sample of African Americans at high-risk for psychiatric disorders, purpose in life emerged as a key factor predicting resilience and recovery from traumatic events Trauma, Resilience, and Recovery in a High-Risk African-American Population On the other end of the spectrum, low levels of purpose are associated with various psychological disorders Well-being and Psychopathology: A Deep Exploration into Positive Emotions, Meaning and Purpose in Life, and Social Relationships The relationship between values and well-being is more complex. Although values generally exhibit strong relationships with both individual and societal well-being across cultures The longitudinal links of personality traits, values, and well-being and self-esteem: A five-wave study of a nationally representative sample. some values exhibit negative associations with healthy psychological functioning while others seem to bolster well-being. Extrinsic materialistic values are associated with lower levels of well-being Materialistic Values and Goals with especially strong associations to risky health behaviors and economic decisions, as well as negative self-appraisals and reduced overall well-being The relationship between materialism and personal well-being: A meta-analysis. A study of more than 25,000 young adults from 58 countries found that intrinsically meaningful values related to social connections and contributing to one’s community were more strongly associated with well-being than extrinsic values related to power and financial gain, although the nature of these relationships varied across countries I Want to Be a Billionaire: How Do Extrinsic and Intrinsic Values Influence Youngsters’ Well-Being? Neural and Biological Underpinnings

Peripheral Biology
Empirical studies are beginning to address the pathways through which purpose and values are protective of both physical health and psychological well-being. One such pathway is the role that purpose plays in stress resilience Purposeful engagement, healthy aging, and the brain Higher levels of purpose at baseline have been found to predict decreased allostatic load—signifying the negative impact of chronic stress—10 y later Purpose in life predicts allostatic load ten years later Similarly, higher purpose in life buffers elevated inflammation in those with comorbid health conditions Living well with medical comorbidities: A biopsychosocial perspective also predicts accelerated recovery from stress in the elderly, as measured by salivary cortisol levels “Purpose in Life” as a psychosocial resource in healthy aging: An examination of cortisol baseline levels and response to the trier social stress test Emotion- and threat-related circuitry The protective role of purpose also extends to emotional stress. A recent study from our laboratory demonstrated that higher purpose in life was associated with better emotional recovery 2 y later, as indexed by smaller eyeblink startle reflex in response to negative images Purpose in life predicts better emotional recovery from negative stimuli Higher levels of purpose are also associated with less emotional reactivity to negative stimuli and more effective brain-related emotion regulation, as evidenced by increased recruitment of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and reduced activity in the left amygdala Individual differences in amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity are associated with evaluation speed and psychological well-being A pioneering study found that prioritizing self-transcendent values over nontranscendent values is associated with less brain-related threat response to health messages in the left and right amygdala and left anterior insula Self-transcendent values and neural responses to threatening health messages Decision-making circuitry In a study of 220 sedentary adults, those with higher levels of purpose were able to endorse challenging health messages more readily than those with lower levels of purpose Purpose in life and conflict-related neural responses during health decision-making

Training-Related Changes
ACT, for instance, which includes both acceptance and values-based practices, has been shown to be an effective treatment for those dealing with chronic pain, improving both emotional resilience and physical functioning Acceptance and values-based action in chronic pain: A three-year follow-up analysis of treatment effectiveness and process Affirming personal values has also been found to decrease psychological distress and depression Improvements in depression and mental health after acceptance and commitment therapy are related to changes in defusion and values-based action and to bolster resilience to psychosocial stress, as evidenced by reduced cortisol response Affirmation of personal values buffers neuroendocrine and psychological stress responses While self-transcendent values serve to bolster well-being, inducing self-oriented materialistic values leads to negative outcomes, such as decreased prosocial behavior The psychological consequences of money even in young children Would you do something for me? The effects of money activation on social preferences and social behavior in young children Affirming self-transcendent personal values, on the other hand, is linked to positive outcomes, including increased self-control Two types of value-affirmation: Implications for self-control following social exclusion reduced self-focused rumination The cessation of rumination through self-affirmation less bias against personally challenging information Accepting threatening information: Self-affirmation and the reduction of defensive biases inducing self-transcendent values led to healthier behaviors in the following month, as well as corresponding activity in a region of the vmPFC linked to positive evaluations and reward processing. Effects of self-transcendence on neural responses to persuasive messages and health behavior change In addition to affirming values, research further suggests that enacting values in everyday situations may play an especially important role in human flourishing Walking the talk: Value importance, value enactment, and well-being Behaving in a way that is inconsistent with personal values is associated with higher levels of negative affect and lower overall well-being The complexities of “minding the gap”: Perceived discrepancies between values and behavior affect well-being A study of the relationship between purpose and academic achievement found that a brief, one-time induction of a self-transcendent purpose for learning led to a variety of positive learning outcomes, whereas an induction of a more self-oriented purpose produced no positive outcomes Boring but important: A self-transcendent purpose for learning fosters academic self-regulation Similarly, studies of volunteering have found that self-transcendent motivations are related to more beneficial outcomes relative to those that are self-oriented Motivations to volunteer and their associations with volunteers’ well-being Such interventions buffer age-related declines in brain function in at-risk adults Impact of the Baltimore Experience Corps trial on cortical and hippocampal volumes and improve self-regulation, with increased activity in the lateral PFC and anterior cingulate cortex associated with gains in executive function Evidence for neurocognitive plasticity in at-risk older adults: The Experience Corps program