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A common way to describe the location of an object is to spatially relate it to a nearby object. For such descriptions, the object being described is referred to as the located object; the object to which it is spatially related is referred to as the reference object. Typically, however, there are many nearby objects (distractors), resulting in the need for selection. We report three experiments that examine the extent to which a distractor in the display is processed during the selection of a reference object. Using acceptability ratings and production measures, we show that the presence and the placement ofa distractor have a significant impact on the assessment of the spatial relation between the located and reference objects; there is also evidence that the properties of the distractor are processed, but only under limited conditions. One implication is that the dimension that is most relevant to reference object selection is its spatial relation to the located object, rather than its salience with respect to other objects in the display. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects on heart rate, blood pressure and pulmonary function of single oral doses of prizidilol hydrochloride (400 mg SK&F 92657) and propranolol (40 mg) were compared with placebo in nine healthy volunteers, in a double blind crossover study. Prizidilol had no effect on heart rate while propranolol caused a significant reduction compared with placebo. Diastolic blood pressure was lowered to the same extent by both prizidilol and propranolol. Propranolol significantly reduced the forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC) and the maximal expiratory flow at 50% vital capacity (MEF 50). Prizidilol had no effect on flow-volume loop parameters. Effective pulmonary blood flow was not altered by propranolol, but it was significantly increased by prizidilol. Oral prizidilol exerts its hypotensive effect by vasodilatation without reflex tachycardia. It does not cause airways obstruction in healthy subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having a sense of purpose in life predicts better maintenance of cognitive function in older adulthood and reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia. However, little research has examined its influence on the rate of cognitive decline and length of cognitive healthspan. This study evaluated the role of sense of purpose on the risk and timing of transitions between normal cognition, MCI, and dementia. Older adults from the Memory and Aging Project (MAP; n  = 1821) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; n  = 10,542) were followed annually for 19 years and biennially for 12 years, respectively. Multistate survival models assessed whether sense of purpose predicted transitions across normal cognition, MCI, dementia, and death. More purposeful older adults had lower risk of developing MCI ( HR  = 0.82 in MAP; HR  = 0.93 in HRS), higher likelihood of cognitive improvement, and longer cognitively healthy life expectancies. Results suggest sense of purpose may extend the cognitive healthspan.

The current study sought to advance our understanding of the connections between stress, perceived control, affect, and physiology in daily life. To achieve this goal, we integrated hourly ambulatory physiological and experiential data from young adult participants who experienced work or academic stressors over the course of a day. Participants wore a cardiovascular monitor that recorded heart rate data continuously for 8 h while hourly random Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) data were collected in personally relevant settings via mobile phones to learn about stress, perceived control, and affect. The current findings provide a critical advance by demonstrating clear evidence for moderation by perceived control, wherein affective wellbeing was strongly associated with heart rate when one experienced a stressor outside their control. The innovative approach utilized in the current study in real-world settings provides further support for the value of integrating individuals' self-report and physiological experiences (e.g., the role of perceived control), as the information gained can provide critical insights into stress physiology (e.g., heart rate) and wellbeing (e.g., negative affect) connections. The present study thus provides a critical advance to the literature by connecting the literature on daily affect, perceived control, and physiological data streams. This innovation is particularly noteworthy given the general paucity of work that employs ambulatory assessments of physiological responses to daily life., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2025 Lohani, Dutton, Imel and Hill.)

Purpose/objective: Disability has traditionally been viewed as a deficit in psychology research; however, accruing work suggests that viewing disability as an identity may be protective for mental health and well-being among disabled individuals. Therefore, developing disability identity measures that comprehensively capture this view of disability as an identity is an important step for promoting disabled individuals' flourishing., Research Method/design: To address this, we conducted two studies aimed at developing and validating a new scale to measure physical disability identity among adults with physical disability. In Study 1 ( N = 104), we solicited feedback on our new scale from adults with physical disabilities and revised our scale to ensure that it captured their lived experiences. In Study 2 ( N = 296), we tested the factor structure of the new Physical Disability Identity Scale. All data were collected in 2023., Results: Most participants reported that our scale was easy to comprehend and comprehensively captured their lived experiences. We found evidence for a six-factor structure of the new Physical Disability Identity Scale, which assessed the following dimensions: Connection, Satisfaction, Centrality, Openness, Individual Self-Stereotyping, and Disability Lens. In addition, results suggested that Connection, Satisfaction, and Openness were adaptively related to well-being and health, whereas Centrality, Individual Self-Stereotyping, and Disability Lens were mostly adversely related to well-being and health., Conclusion/implications: This research suggests that our Physical Disability Identity Scale is valid among adults with physical disabilities and that physical disability identity dimensions may be valuable to consider in future work on well-being and health among individuals with physical disabilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Purpose/objective: The present review examined the evidence for a potentially bidirectional association between mobility function and cognitive function in midlife and older adulthood., Research Method/design: In 2023-2024, we conducted a scoping review by carrying out systematic searches on Google Scholar, PubMed, and PsycINFO for articles that included measures of mobility function and cognitive function., Results: Of the 1,504 articles screened, 40 were included for review. The majority of reviewed studies found evidence of a relation between lower mobility function/greater mobility decline and lower cognitive function/greater cognitive decline. Prospective effects were observed in both directions; however, only five studies directly tested the bidirectionality of the association between mobility function and cognitive function., Conclusion/implications: Individuals with lower mobility function may be more likely to experience declines in cognitive function and vice versa. More research is needed to further test the bidirectionality of this association and to identify protective factors that may disrupt this relation and reduce the incidence of co-occurring mobility impairment and cognitive impairment.

Research into immigrant wellbeing and health has yielded evidence for both potential risks and the capacity for resilience of individuals moving to the United States. Limited research, though, has considered how immigrants may differ in their perceived commitment to a life direction and goals, known as sense of purpose. Moreover, research is needed on whether immigrants may be more likely to derive that purpose through social activism for change. The current study employed a nationwide sample of U. S. adults ( N  = 1973; 5.3% immigrants), who reported on their sense of purpose, activist purpose, self-rated health, and life satisfaction. Results indicated that immigrants did not significantly differ from native-born U. S. adults on levels for any of the primary variables. Sense of purpose was more strongly associated with life satisfaction for native-born than immigrant participants, although other associations were similar in magnitude across groups. Future research should further explore background predictors of sense of purpose among immigrant samples, as well as whether immigrants and native-born adults differ on alternative forms of purpose.

Individuals with a stronger sense of purpose in life experience better health across the lifespan. This chapter describes one mechanism linking purpose to health, namely stress reactivity. Across survey, experimental, and daily diary studies, research demonstrates that sense of purpose may yield a homeostatic function, insofar that it helps individuals stay the course to progress toward their purpose in life. Future research is needed to examine how self-regulatory capabilities explain why sense of purpose influences reactivity to stressors and daily events., (© 2025. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Background and Objective: Research has shown that perceptions of future time as limited are associated with more depressive symptoms. However, there is limited research on which dimensions of future time perspective (FTP: opportunity, extension, constraint) are associated with depression, anxiety, and stress, and whether these findings vary across age., Design and Methods: Data came from a cross-sectional study in a nonclinical U.S. sample ( N  = 793, 48.0% male; 48.7% female; age: M  = 50 years, range: 19-85 years), and local structural equation modeling was used to examine the moderating role of age as a continuous variable rather than artificial age groups., Results: For all dimensions of FTP, the perception of the future as limited was moderately to strongly associated with higher depression, anxiety and stress levels. More importantly, the association between the perceived constraint dimension and depression, anxiety, and stress was twice as large at younger ages than at older ages., Conclusion: These findings indicate that perceived constraint is primarily a strong risk factor for or indicator of negative wellbeing in young adulthood, whereas perceived limited opportunity and extension are potential risk factors or indicators across the entire adulthood.

Objective: Examining the personality and well-being correlates of positive event diversity., Background: Past research has highlighted that personality traits are linked to the frequency of daily positive events. This study is the first to examine positive event diversity, the extent to which positive events are spread across multiple types of positive life domains, as well as its personality and well-being correlates., Method: We conducted parallel analyses of three daily diary datasets (Ns = 1919, 744, and 1392) that included evening assessment of daily positive events and affective well-being. The Big Five personality traits were assessed in baseline surveys., Results: Positive Event Diversity was related to higher person-mean daily positive affect but not negative affect. Higher Extraversion, Agreeableness, Openness, and lower Neuroticism were correlated with more positive event diversity. These associations became nonsignificant when controlling for positive event frequency. Positive event frequency moderated the link between positive event diversity and person-mean affect, such that higher positive event diversity was associated with higher negative and lower positive affect for people who experienced more frequent positive events., Conclusions: No consistent evidence was found for personality as a moderator of the positive event diversity-well-being link across the three studies. Further, the well-being implications of positive event diversity may be better understood when interpreting them alongside indexes of positive event frequency., (© 2024 The Authors. Journal of Personality published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Introduction: Increasing evidence suggests that inflammation may play a pivotal role in the development of chronic pain and fatigue in aging individuals. This study investigated the relationship between three inflammatory markers (IL-6, CRP, and TNFα) and pain and fatigue, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, in a sample of older adults from the Saint Louis Personality and Aging (SPAN) study., Methods: SPAN study participants provided blood samples at two in-person sessions approximately 2 years apart for the analysis of the inflammatory biomarkers IL-6, CRP, and TNFα. Pain and fatigue were assessed using the RAND-36 Health Status Inventory. Correlations (with false discovery rate correction for multiple testing) and follow-up linear regressions including potentially confounding demographic (e.g., annual household income) and health (e.g., BMI, medication use) covariates were used to estimate cross sectional and longitudinal associations. Analytic ns ranged from 533 to 815., Results: Cross-sectional analyses revealed that higher IL-6 and CRP were associated with greater reported pain and fatigue, even after accounting for covariates (βs > .098, p s < .05). TNFα was associated with greater fatigue only (β = .100, p  = .012). Longitudinally, CRP and IL-6 predicted future pain and fatigue, although only the relationship between CRP and future fatigue survived the inclusion of covariates (β = .104, p  = .022). Both pain and fatigue predicted higher levels of IL-6 and CRP approximately 2 years later, although only the associations with IL-6 survived the inclusion of covariates (βs > .12, ps  < .01)., Discussion: Our study adds to a growing body of literature showing that inflammation is associated with greater pain and fatigue in older adults. Our longitudinal data showing temporal bidirectional associations is consistent with evidence from non-human animal models that heightened inflammation causally contributes to fatigue and also suggests that the experience of pain and fatigue may contribute to inflammation. It will be important for future work to identify how lifestyle factors associated with pain and fatigue (e.g., physical activity) may contribute to these associations., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Objectives: Immigrants face multiple forms of cultural stress that hold pernicious influences on their psychological well-being, including everyday discrimination, bicultural stressors, and negative context of reception from others. Research thus is needed to consider potential buffers and mitigating factors that may help immigrant adults in the face of cultural stress. The present studies evaluated a sense of purpose as one potential buffer., Method: Study 1 asked immigrant adults in the Unites States to complete measures of the three cultural stress indicators in addition to sense of purpose and measures of well-being (depressive symptoms, anxiety, stress, self-esteem, self-rated health). Multiple regression analyses examined whether sense of purpose moderated the influence of cultural stress on immigrant well-being. Study 2 randomly assigned immigrant participants receive an experimental condition that asked participants to imagine a common cultural stressor faced by immigrants. Multiple regression analyses tested whether sense of purpose operated differently on postscenario affect across the control and experimental conditions., Results: Study 1 found that all cultural stress indicators negatively correlated with psychological well-being and sense of purpose. However, sense of purpose did not significantly moderate these associations. Study 2 found that imagining the cultural stressor led to worse momentary affective well-being, whereas sense of purpose was associated with better well-being. Again, sense of purpose did not interact with the condition to predict the postscenario affect., Conclusions: Sense of purpose was consistently associated with better psychological well-being. However, little evidence was found that sense of purpose mitigates the ill effects of cultural stress for immigrant adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Conscientiousness and sense of purpose consistently predict health, wellbeing, and health behavior. However, it remains an open question whether they are unique or overlapping predictors of health and wellbeing. The current study considered this question using the MOSAiCH study, a nationally representative sample of 2305 Swiss adults ( M : 52.33 years old; SD = 17.36). Participants reported on sense of purpose and conscientiousness, in addition to multiple health, wellbeing, and health behavior indicators (e.g. dietary practices, activity engagement, health conditions, psychological concerns, and doctor visits). Results found conscientiousness and sense of purpose were moderately associated with multiple health, wellbeing, and health behavior indicators. Bifactor modeling was employed to test the incremental validity of conscientiousness and sense of purpose, when accounting for their shared variance. The specific factor for purpose predicted outcomes even when accounting for conscientiousness. However, conscientiousness had little incremental validity over the general factor., Competing Interests: Data sharing statementThe data can be made accessible to interested researchers through completing forms on the MOSAiCH website. Declaration of conflicting interestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Engagement in healthier lifestyle behaviors often is motivated by a focus on the future. However, there is limited research on the associations between health behavior and future time perspective, defined as people's tendency to perceive their future as expansive or as limited. Data came from a survey of U.S. adults ( N  = 805, 49.3% female; M  = 50 years, range: 19 to 85 years). Participants completed measures of perceptions of future opportunities and time and health behavior. Opportunities and time factors were uniquely associated with health behavior. While the perceived opportunities factor was strongly associated with better health behavior, the time factor was associated with poorer health behavior. However, this latter association was dependent on individual demographic and health status differences. These findings suggest that perceptions of future opportunities can play an important role in health behavior engagement and thus represent an important target for health promotion., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Wellbeing-defined broadly as experiencing one's life as enjoyable and fulfilling-has been associated with lower risk for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. The mechanisms underlying this association are largely unknown. However, prior research and theory suggest that wellbeing impacts health behaviors and biological systems that are relevant to cognitive and brain health. Several of these factors have also been identified by the 2020 Lancet Commission on Dementia Prevention, Intervention, and Care as modifiable dementia risk factors. In the current review, we summarize and evaluate the evidence for associations between wellbeing and each of the 12 Lancet Commission risk factors. We found relatively consistent evidence for associations between higher wellbeing and lower levels of most of the risk factors: physical inactivity, social isolation, smoking, depression, hypertension, diabetes, hearing loss, traumatic brain injury, and air pollution. By contrast, we found evidence for only modest associations between wellbeing and education and mixed evidence for associations of wellbeing with alcohol use and body weight. Although most of the reviewed evidence was observational, longitudinal and experimental evidence suggests that many of the observed associations are likely bidirectional. These findings suggest that modifiable dementia risk factors may be mediators (i.e., intermediate steps in the causal chain) and/or confounders (i.e., variables that impact both wellbeing and dementia, and thus could induce a spurious association) of the association between wellbeing and dementia. We conclude by discussing next steps to test mediation hypotheses and to account for potential confounding in the relation between wellbeing and dementia., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Health complications from diabetes place major strain on individuals, financially and emotionally. The onset and severity of these complications are largely driven by patients' behaviors, making psychosocial factors that influence behaviors key targets for interventions. One promising factor is sense of purpose or the degree to which a person believes their life has direction., Method: The current study investigated whether sense of purpose predicts self-rated health, cardiovascular disease, and smoking status among adults with diabetes concurrently and prospectively. Moreover, it tested whether these associations held across multiple samples and cultures. Coordinated analysis using 12 datasets cross-sectionally and eight longitudinally (total N = 7277) estimated the degree to which sense of purpose is associated with subjective health, smoking status, and cardiovascular disease among adults with diabetes. Coordinated analysis allows for greater generalizability of results across cultures, time periods, and measurement instruments. Datasets were included if they concurrently included a measure of sense of purpose and diabetes status and at least one health measure: self-rated health, current smoking status, or heart condition status., Results: Sense of purpose was associated with higher self-rated health, smoking status, and cardiovascular disease cross-sectionally and self-rated health prospectively. Purpose was unassociated with changes in health over time., Conclusion: These results highlight the relationship of a key individual difference, sense of purpose, to the behaviors and outcomes of adults with diabetes. While more research is needed to determine the boundaries of this relationship, it seems sense of purpose may be considered in the future as a potential target for intervention., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Research is needed to better understand factors promoting health and well-being with Indigenous Peoples and people with socioeconomic barriers in Canada, given they face multiple social determinants that are barriers to health. Individual dispositions, sense of purpose and conscientiousness, are known to predict health and well-being in broader samples. In a community-based approach, guided by Indigenous Elders with traditional ways of knowing, we aimed to determine whether these measures correlate with self-rated health and well-being among Indigenous ( n = 149) and non-Indigenous ( n = 151) Peoples in Vancouver, Canada. The majority of participants (mean age 49 years, and 58% male) had relatively low income (≤$15,000/year) and educational attainment (

Longitudinal research is lacking with respect to how negative emotional reactivity and somatic symptoms during adolescence set the stage for later health. The aim of this longitudinal study was to examine within-person associations between negative emotional reactivity and somatic symptoms during adolescence and their effects on health and wellbeing in adulthood. Participants (N = 1527; 48.3% female) were assessed annually at the age of 12 to 16 years and at the age of 35 and 45 years. Adolescents with frequent somatic symptoms reported higher reactivity. Individual differences in levels and changes of somatic symptoms and reactivity were independently associated with adult health and wellbeing decades later. The findings underscore the importance of considering how individual differences change during adolescent development., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Cognitive gerontology research requires consideration of performance as well as perceptions of performance. While subjective memory is positively associated with memory performance, these correlations typically are modest in magnitude, leading to the need to consider whether certain people may show weaker or stronger linkages between performance and perceptions. The current study leveraged personality (NEO Big Five), memory performance (i.e., word recall), and perceptions of memory ability (i.e., metamemory in adulthood and memory decline) data from the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network (SPAN) study ( n  = 774, mean age: 71.52 years). Extraversion and conscientiousness held the most consistent associations with the cognitive variables of interest, as both traits were positively associated with metamemory and word recall, but negatively associated with subjective decline. Moreover, extraversion moderated associations between word recall and both memory capacity and complaints, insofar that objective-subjective associations were weaker for those adults higher in extraversion. These findings highlight the need to understand how personality influences the sources of information employed for subjective cognitive beliefs.

What does a good life look like? The present research investigated individual differences in people's perceptions of the factors that are most important for living a good life using two waves of data in probability samples from the U.S. (MIDUS; N = 4,041) and Japan (MIDJA; N = 381). We examined country- and age-related similarities and differences in perceptions of a good life and associations of perceptions of a good life with experiences of wellbeing and physical health. Some factors were considered important for living a good life in both countries and across age (e.g., positive relationships with family), whereas other factors varied between countries (e.g., U.S. participants were more likely to perceive faith as important) and by age (e.g., younger adults were more likely to perceive having a good job as important). Further, perceptions of a good life were related to experiences of wellbeing and physical health concurrently and prospectively. This research informs our understanding of how people differ from one another in their perceptions of a good life, and how these differences may matter for individuals' experiences of a good life.

Objective: Abundant research has linked nightly sleep as an antecedent of daily psychosocial experiences; however, less is known about sleep's influence on daily expectations of these experiences. Therefore, this research examined the day-to-day associations of sleep quality, duration, and efficiency with next-day expectations for stress(ors) and positive experiences, as well as whether these expectations were related to end-of-day reports of physical symptoms., Methods: In Study 1, U.S. adults ( n = 354; ages 19 to 74) completed twice-daily diaries for 10 weekdays about sleep, expectations for encountering daily stressors and positive events, and physical symptoms. In Study 2, adults in Canada ( n = 246; ages 25 to 87) wore a sleep watch for 14 consecutive days and completed mobile surveys 5×/day about sleep, stressfulness and pleasantness expectations, and physical symptoms., Results: Multilevel models indicated that self-reported sleep quality and duration, but not efficiency, were associated with lower next-day expectations for stressors (Study 1) and stressfulness (Study 2). Self-reported sleep quality (Study 1) and all sleep indices (Study 2) predicted greater next-day expectations for positive events and pleasantness, respectively. For actigraphy-assessed sleep (Study 2), only longer-than-usual actigraphic sleep duration was associated with lower stressfulness expectations, whereas both sleep duration and efficiency were positively linked with daily pleasantness expectations. Only pleasantness expectations (Study 2)-but not daily stressfulness and event expectations (Study 1)-predicted end-of-day physical symptoms., Conclusion: Findings suggest the importance of sleep on expectations of next-day stress and positive experiences, of which may have implications for daily physical health., (Copyright © 2024 by the American Psychosomatic Society.)

To understand the biology of a species, it is often crucial to be able to differentiate males and females. However, many species lack easily identifiable sexually dimorphic traits. In those that possess sex chromosomes, molecular sexing offers a good alternative, and molecular sexing assays can be developed through the comparison of male and female genomic sequences. However, in many nonmodel species, sex chromosomes are poorly differentiated, and identifying sex-linked sequences and developing sexing assays can be challenging. In this study, we highlight a simple transcriptome-based procedure for the detection of sex-linked markers suitable for the development of sexing assays that circumvents limitations of more commonly used approaches. We apply it to the spotted snow skink Carinascincus ocellatus, a viviparous lizard with homomorphic XY chromosomes that has environmentally induced sex reversal. With transcriptomes from three males and three females alone, we identify thousands of putative Y-linked sequences. We confirm linkage through alignment of assembled transcripts to a distantly related lizard genome and readily design multiple single locus polymerase chain reaction primers to sex C. ocellatus and related species. Our approach also facilitates valuable comparisons of sex determining systems on a broad taxonomic scale., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.)

Sense of purpose refers to the extent to which one feels that they have personally meaningful goals and directions guiding them through life. Though this construct predicts a host of benefits, little is known regarding the extent to which sense of purpose fluctuates within an individual and the affective changes tied to those fluctuations. The current study uses daily diary data to addresses this gap by exploring (1) how much sense of purpose and different components of purpose fluctuate from one day to the next, (2) the extent to which these fluctuations correlate with positive and negative affect, and (3) whether dispositional sense of purpose and age correlate with greater variability. Participants ( N = 354) reported on their sense of purpose and positive and negative affect every day for 10 days. Results suggest that approximately 45-61% of the variability in sense of purpose scores occurs between-person depending on how it is assessed. Furthermore, the within-person variability in sense of purpose is more strongly correlated with changes in positive affect relative to negative affect. Finally, higher levels of dispositional sense of purpose and age do not appear to be associated with how much variability an individual experiences in their purposefulness from one day to next. The discussion focuses on what these findings mean for the trait-like nature of sense of purpose, short-term sense of purpose measurement, lifespan development, and intervention efforts., Competing Interests: Declaration of Interests The authors (Gabrielle N. Pfund, Anthony L. Burrow, Patrick L. Hill) have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article.

Purpose is an important construct across contexts and cultures, with evidence suggesting it is strongly related to health, health behaviors, discrimination, and experiences of trauma. In this narrative review of the research on purpose in Hawai'i, the authors identify, critically analyze, and synthesize the extant literature found through a comprehensive literature search. It then discusses important cultural considerations for engaging in purpose research in Hawai'i, broadly, and with the Indigenous people of Hawai'i ( Kānaka Maoli ). The review presents findings on how sense of purpose levels differ between Hawai'i and the continental United States and risk factors or strengths critical in shaping the development of purpose in Hawai'i. Potential future directions for this line of inquiry conclude this review, with a particular emphasis on the need for integration of Kanaka Maoli ontology and values., Competing Interests: None of the authors identify a conflict of interest., (©Copyright 2024 by University Health Partners of Hawai‘i (UHP Hawai‘i).)

Using data from Midlife in the United States ( N =3,767), this study investigates how believing having money or occupational prestige is important for a good life is associated with different aspects of well-being. Actual income was positively associated with sense of purpose, personal growth, self-acceptance, environmental mastery, and life satisfaction, negatively associated with negative affect, and was not associated with autonomy, positive relations with others, or positive affect. Meanwhile, perceiving having enough money or extra money as important for a good life predicted poorer well-being across all nine well-being indicators. Occupational prestige was positively associated with sense of purpose, autonomy, personal growth, self-acceptance, environmental mastery, and life satisfaction, while perceiving having occupational prestige as important was negatively associated with autonomy, personal growth, self-acceptance, positive relations with others, and positively with negative affect. The discussion focuses on how desiring money or prestige can influence well-being beyond having-or not having-those desires., Competing Interests: The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article.

Sense of purpose, a consistent promoter of successful aging across the lifespan, has been shown in previous research to decline during older adulthood. As such, research is needed to understand how to inform policies around promoting a sense of purpose for older adults, and which adults may need more assistance on this front. One potential mechanism for lower purpose in older adulthood could be due to the more limited financial assets many face following retirement. As such, the current study investigated the cross-sectional associations between different kinds of financial assets and sense of purpose among older adults from the 2006 and 2008 waves of the Health and Retirement Study ( n = 9,380). Sense of purpose as well as four financial assets were assessed: physical assets, retirement account assets, investment account assets, and debts. Findings indicated that greater physical assets and retirement account assets predicted a higher sense of purpose, while debt and investment account assets did not. Furthermore, there were no moderating effects of different grouping variables, such as retirement status, race, marital status, subjective health, or wave, on the associations between total net worth and sense of purpose. Findings are discussed regarding why net worth matters for all, and why certain assets may be more important than others when promoting a sense of purpose.

Background and Aims: Wellbeing research among individuals with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) is limited. The goal of the current study is to characterize the challenges experienced by adults with CMT that researchers may miss by utilizing typical strategies to capture mental health and wellbeing., Methods: In 2021, we recruited 288 US adults with CMT ( M Age = 60 years, 59% Female, 93% White) to take part in an online survey. Participants were presented with validated wellbeing and health measures, in addition to newly created measures specific to CMT, and then asked to provide free-response feedback about aspects of their lived experiences missing from these measures. Thematic analysis were applied to the free-response data to identify CMT-related difficulties that may impact wellbeing among adults with CMT., Results: Results identified nine CMT-related challenges that are important to individuals with CMT and are often left out of wellbeing assessments in this population. The three most common themes identified were anxiety or worry, coping with loss of function or progression, and difficulty finding knowledgeable medical providers. Further, some aspects of the CMT experience may be comorbid., Interpretation: These results can be used to inform future research and clinical practice in the CMT population., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors.)

Multiple studies have focused on the role of psychosocial factors as predictors of COVID-19 vaccination willingness and uptake, with less attention paid to whether vaccination itself could influence wellbeing. The current study evaluated this possibility with respect to sense of purpose, the perception one has goals and a direction in life, building on previous evidence this factor may influence vaccination willingness and decision-making. Across seven waves of monthly data from February to August 2021, participants (n = 2169, m age  = 48.0 years) across Canada and the United States reported on their sense of purpose and vaccination status. Using piecewise regression models, results indicated that sense of purpose did not appear to fluctuate in the month prior to, during, or following COVID-19 vaccination. However, across most months of the survey, vaccinated participants did report greater sense of purpose relative to unvaccinated participants. These findings are discussed with respect to whether health behaviors, such as vaccination, should be viewed as behaviors indicative of leading a purposeful life., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The author declares the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Nancy Sin reports financial support was provided by Government of Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The remaining authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (430-2019-00608 to NLS and 435-2016-1350 to AD)., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Pemphigus disease and mucous membrane pemphigoid are autoimmune blistering diseases (AIBDs) which may involve both oral and extra-oral tissues. The Bristol Joint Oral Medicine and Dermatology Combined Clinic was set up in 2014, with the primary aim of improving the standard of care for patients with AIBDs. This interdisciplinary approach aimed to address the medical management challenges due to the multisite nature of these AIBDs.We present a narrative report of the clinical work undertaken within this clinic, focused on the management of this patient cohort within a five-year span (2017-2022). This report outlines the multisite nature of AIBDs and the range of topical and systemic treatments that were employed to achieve adequate disease control and optimise outcomes for patients. We reflect on the experiential benefits of this multidisciplinary clinic extended beyond immediate patient benefits to areas such as specialist training, both from a dermatologist's and oral physician's perspective., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

General dental practitioners (GDPs) are well-placed to identify incidental skin lesions when they see patients for routine dental care. Indeed, some patients with an undiagnosed skin malignancy may only see their GDP on a regular basis rather than their general medical practitioner (GMP). GDPs should be able to assess exposed areas of skin, particularly focusing on the head and neck, to identify any lesions of concern and liaise with the patient's GMP where appropriate. We provide an overview focused upon the clinical appearances of isolated benign and malignant lesions, tailored for GDPs., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Despite the value of sense of purpose during older adulthood, this construct often declines with age. With some older adults reconsidering the relevance of purpose later in life, the measurement of purpose may suffer from variance issues with age. The current study investigated whether sense of purpose functions similarly across ages and evaluated if the predictive power of purpose on mental, physical, cognitive, and financial outcomes changes when accounting for a less age-affected measurement structure. Utilizing data from two nationwide panel studies (Health and Retirement Study: n = 14,481; Midlife in the United States: n = 4,030), the current study conducted local structural equation modeling and found two factors for the positively and negatively valenced purpose items in the Purpose in Life subscale (Ryff, 1989), deemed the purposeful and purposeless factor. These factors become less associated with each other at higher ages. When reproducing past findings with this two-factor structure, the current study found that the purposeful and purposeless factors predicted these outcomes in the same direction as would be suggested by past research, but the magnitude of these effects differed for some outcomes. The discussion focuses on the implications of what this means for our understanding of sense of purpose across the lifespan. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Given the increased threats to health and well-being faced by transgender individuals, research is needed to understand potential protective factors. Recent work has suggested that a sense of purpose may be one of the health-promoting resources available to marginalized groups, and levels of purpose are often similar or even higher among these groups. However, research is limited regarding whether this factor manifests differently among transgender adults. The current study ( n  = 1968 U.S. adults; 4.3% identified as transgender) asked participants to complete surveys for sense of purpose, self-rated health, life satisfaction and the type of purposes they deemed important. The findings suggest no difference in levels of sense of purpose between transgender and non-transgender adults. Transgender adults reported slightly lower levels of importance across multiple purposes, which merits further investigation into whether they perceive greater obstacles toward those goals. Of central importance, sense of purpose positively correlated with self-rated health ( r  = .50) and life satisfaction for transgender adults ( r  = .77), at similar or even greater magnitudes than for the non-transgender adults. These results point to the potential of exploring sense of purpose as an intervention target for promoting transgender health and well-being, and future directions should focus on the multiple pathways by which transgender identity may influence purpose development.

Purpose/objective: The goal of the current study is to examine the relationships between psychosocial factors and well-being among adults with Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease, a progressive neuromuscular disorder. Specifically, we aimed to examine associations between psychosocial factors and sense of purpose as well as the moderating role of sense of purpose on associations between psychosocial factors and two other measures of well-being (life satisfaction and health-related quality of life)., Research Method/design: In 2021, we recruited 263 U.S. adults with CMT (M age = 60.15 years, 58.56% female, 92.40% White) to take part in a cross-sectional study. Participants were asked to complete an online survey assessing components of well-being as well as various psychosocial factors., Results: Moderate-to-strong associations were found between most psychosocial factors assessed and sense of purpose in individuals with CMT. In addition, sense of purpose moderated the relationship between multiple psychosocial factors and other measures of well-being., Conclusions/implications: Psychosocial factors may be important to consider when examining well-being among individuals with CMT. Furthermore, sense of purpose may be a beneficial tool for promoting well-being in this population. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Stress-induced dysregulation of diurnal cortisol is a cornerstone of stress-disease theories; however, observed associations between cortisol, stress, and health have been inconsistent. The reliability of diurnal cortisol features may contribute to these equivocal findings. Our meta-analysis (5 diurnal features from 11 studies; total participant n = 3307) and investigation (15 diurnal cortisol features) in 2 independent studies (St. Louis Personality and Aging Network [SPAN] Study, n = 147, ages 61-73; Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation [MLSRA] Study, n = 90, age 37) revealed large variability in the day-to-day test-retest reliability of diurnal features derived from salivary cortisol data (i.e., ICC = 0.00-0.75). Collectively, these data indicate that some commonly used diurnal cortisol features have poor reliability that is insufficient for individual differences research (e.g., cortisol awakening response) while others (e.g., area under the curve with respect to ground) have fair-to-good reliability that could support reliable identification of associations in well-powered studies., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2023 The Authors.)

Objective: Sense of purpose in life has been linked with better physical health, longevity, and reduced risk for disability and dementia, but the mechanisms linking sense of purpose with diverse health outcomes are unclear. Sense of purpose may promote better physiological regulation in response to stressors and health challenges, leading to lower allostatic load and disease risk over time. The current study examined the association between sense of purpose in life and allostatic load over time in adults over age 50., Methods: Data from the nationally representative US Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) were used to examine associations between sense of purpose and allostatic load across 8 and 12 years of follow-up, respectively. Blood-based and anthropometric biomarkers were collected at four-year intervals and used to compute allostatic load scores based on clinical cut-off values representing low, moderate, and high risk., Results: Population-weighted multilevel models revealed that sense of purpose in life was associated with lower overall levels of allostatic load in HRS, but not in ELSA after adjusting for relevant covariates. Sense of purpose in life did not predict rate of change in allostatic load in either sample., Conclusions: The present investigation supports sense of purpose predicting preserved differentiation of allostatic regulation, with more purposeful individuals demonstrating consistently lower allostatic load over time. Persistent differences in allostatic burden may account for divergent health trajectories between individuals low and high in sense of purpose., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors have no financial or other conflicts to disclose., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Hope has been associated with better health and social well-being outcomes, including emotional adjustment, positive affect, life satisfaction, reduced risk of all-cause mortality, and increased physical activity, yet how hope as a construct impacts these health benefits in older adults is not very well-understood. This study examined: (1) the relationship between hope and health behaviors in older adults; (2) how this relationship may differ across different socio-demographic groups; and (3) how hope relates to perceived future selves among older adults., Methods: The study used cross-sectional data from 711 community-dwelling adults aged ≥55 years (280 men, 431 women). Survey measures included the Snyder Adult Dispositional Hope Scale (ADHS) and the Herth Hope Index (HHI), a health behaviors checklist, self-reported health, and a future self-scale. Data were analyzed using bivariate and multiple regressions., Results: Hope was positively associated with healthy behaviors in older adults. Participants with higher levels of hope also reported more positive future selves and better health. The associations were similar across different racial/ethnic groups., Conclusions: This study fills an important gap in our understanding of hope and its association with health behaviors in community-dwelling older adults. These findings highlight a need to promote hope in older adults in order to enhance their sense of well-being.

Past research has suggested that the path to purpose involves connections with people along the way. In support, sense of purpose appears higher amongst those adults with more positive social relationships and interactions. However, research has yet to consider whether associations between sense of purpose and social relationship variables differ across adulthood. The present study examined this claim using a sample of Swiss adults, who completed measures for sense of purpose, loneliness, received support, and provided support. A large, nationally representative sample of 2,312 Swiss adults (52.34 years old; SD = 17.35) completed these measures, as part of a larger survey. Local structural equation modeling was employed to estimate the means and associations of these constructs across adulthood. Sense of purpose was negatively associated with loneliness, but positively associated overall with both support variables. No evidence was found for age moderation for the association between sense of purpose and loneliness. However, moderation was evidenced insofar that sense of purpose was less associated with both support variables with age. Sense of purpose again appears related to more positive social well-being and relationships, and consistently linked to lower loneliness. The age moderation effects for purpose-support associations are discussed with respect to theories of adult development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Purposefulness may facilitate self-regulation; however, little is known about the self-regulatory strategies that are implemented by purposeful individuals. Given the multiple regulatory challenges students face in their social and academic lives, a central aim of the current work was to consider how purposefulness and self-regulation are linked during the first semester of university. This 13-week-long study was conducted with first-semester college students (N = 256) in the United States of America to examine whether weekly fluctuations in purposefulness may be connected to the use of traditionally adaptive (problem-solving) and maladaptive (rumination and experiential avoidance) self-regulation strategies. Consistent with our hypothesis, at the within- and between-person level, higher purposefulness was associated with greater use of problem-solving, lower rumination, and lower experiential avoidance at the weekly level. The findings imply purposefulness is an important individual difference that may explain better or worse self-regulatory abilities., (© 2022 International Association of Applied Psychology.)

Genetic risk for Late Onset Alzheimer Disease (AD) has been associated with lower cognition and smaller hippocampal volume in healthy young adults. However, whether these and other associations are present during childhood remains unclear. Using data from 5556 genomically-confirmed European ancestry youth who completed the baseline session of the ongoing the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development SM Study (ABCD Study®), our phenome-wide association study estimating associations between four indices of genetic risk for late-onset AD (i.e., AD polygenic risk scores (PRS), APOE rs429358 genotype, AD PRS with the APOE region removed (AD PRS-APOE ), and an interaction between AD PRS-APOE and APOE genotype) and 1687 psychosocial, behavioral, and neural phenotypes revealed no significant associations after correction for multiple testing (all ps > 0.0002; all p fdr  > 0.07). These data suggest that AD genetic risk may not phenotypically manifest during middle-childhood or that effects are smaller than this sample is powered to detect., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Introduction: This 33-year study examined associations between self-control development in adolescence and forgivingness, i.e., the dispositional tendency to forgive others, in middle adulthood., Methods: Participants were 1350 adults aged 45 years (50.6% female). Self-control was measured yearly from age 12 to 16, while forgivingness was measured at age 45., Results: Results indicated significant individual differences in level and change of self-control across the adolescent years and an average mean-level increase. Individual differences in level and change in self-control were independently associated with forgivingness in middle adulthood. Individuals who either entered adolescence with higher self-control, and/or increased in self-control during the adolescent years, reported higher scores in forgivingness at age 45 compared to peers. This pattern held even after controlling for gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and conduct problems in adolescence., Conclusion: The current findings demonstrate that developmental processes in adolescence are important for individual differences in the dispositional tendency to forgive others in adulthood., (© 2022 The Authors. Journal of Personality published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Objective: Regarding retirement, some but not all people decline in sense of purpose, and retirees may view maintaining a sense of purpose as nonessential. These findings suggest individual differences both in the importance placed on being purposeful during retirement in general and the discrepancy for purpose importance prior to and during retirement. Method: This study surveyed U.S. adults ( n  = 2009, M age  = 48.51) asking them about how they viewed having a purpose in two life stages: before and during retirement, as well as personality and demographic questions. Results: Findings suggest that, overall, people believe it is important to have a purpose and direction during retirement. This tendency was greater among older adults, and those higher on conscientiousness or lower on neuroticism. However, working status did not play a role in the perceived importance of purpose during the retirement period. Moreover, age differentiated who perceives during-retirement purpose as more important than prior-to-retirement purpose. Conclusion: The current findings add to our understanding of when individuals expect to be purposeful and counter the claims that older adults may place less importance on being purposeful. Instead, these findings point to the need for continuing work on how to help older adults maintain or find a purpose in life following retirement.

Objective: Having a sense of purpose is associated with a wide variety of positive health outcomes, largely because purposeful individuals appear to take better care of themselves physically. However, work is limited regarding the role of purpose during health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic., Method: The current cross-sectional study investigated whether having a sense of purpose was associated COVID-19 vaccination rates and willingness, among a Swiss adult sample (n = 2328, Mean = 52.33 years), after accounting for participants' trust in different institutions., Results: Results found that adults with higher levels of institutional trust were more likely to be vaccinated (rs range from 0.06 to 0.13) or were willing to do so (rs range from 0.22 to 0.39). Sense of purpose was associated modestly with greater vaccination status (r = 0.06). However, sense of purpose moderated several associations between trust and vaccination outcomes. Namely, sense of purpose was associated with greater likelihood for vaccination when individuals reported greater trust in university research centers and political institutions., Conclusion: Findings are discussed with respect to how they shape our understanding of purpose-health associations., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Cori Bush is a prominent modern activist in the U.S., becoming involved in activism following Michael Brown's death. Bush, like many activists before her, has set clear goals for social change, yet work is needed to understand why Bush (and like others) became an activist when others did not. One potential reason may be that these exemplars found purpose in life in activism. Thus, the current psychobiography explores the purpose in life of Cori Bush, a prominent activist and politician in the U.S., as well as what factors emerge for how Bush found her purpose in life., Method: The present research gathered public materials (e.g., speeches) from Bush and coded materials for the presence and depth of both themes of purpose and factors predicting purpose., Results: Activism was the most prominent theme of purpose for Bush, with some pro-social purposes also occurring. Multiple personal factors emerged as influences on her activist purpose, including extraversion, psychological flexibility, and action-oriented coping style. Additionally, the situational factors of discriminatory experiences and Michael Brown's death emerged as factors., Conclusion: These results suggest that Bush has an activist purpose in life and that she found this purpose through a combination of personal and situational factors., (© 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Objectives: Purposeful adults may experience greater cognitive resilience because sense of purpose may help buffer against the effects of depressive symptoms and loneliness. We also evaluated whether these associations differed by race., Design: This study uses a wave of self-report data from the SPAN study of psychosocial aging., Setting: Participants come from a representative sample of older adults in St. Louis., Participants: Participants ( N = 595) ages range from 65 to 78 ( M age = 71.46), with 18.3% of participants identifying as Black/African-American., Measures: Sense of purpose was assessed with the Life Engagement Test, depressive symptoms with the Beck Depression Inventory-II, loneliness with the UCLA Loneliness Scale, and subjective cognitive decline with the AD-8., Results: Correlational analyses supported predictions that sense of purpose was negatively related to subjective cognitive decline, whereas depressive symptoms and loneliness were positively related (| r |s > .30, p s < .001). For loneliness, but not depression, this association was moderated by sense of purpose ( b = -0.43, p < .001). A relatively high sense of purpose attenuated associations between loneliness and subjective cognitive decline. A three-way race × purpose × loneliness interaction ( b = -0.25, p = .021) revealed that the buffering effects of sense of purpose on subjective cognitive decline were stronger for Black adults., Discussion: This study provided partial support for the buffering hypothesis, showing that sense of purpose may help mitigate the cognitive decrements associated with loneliness. Future research needs to consider how purpose-promoting programs may support healthy cognitive aging, particularly among Black older adults and those who experience greater social isolation.

Sense of purpose, or feeling that that one has personally meaningful goals and directions guiding them through life, consistently predicts a variety of desirable well-being, health, and social outcomes. However, work has been limited with respect to evaluating it as a predictor and promoter of romantic relationships, or how purpose may develop in these contexts. For instance, healthy romantic relationships could also help individuals develop and maintain a higher sense of purpose. With cross-sectional evidence finding positive associations between sense of purpose and romantic relationship commitment and satisfaction, the current study expanded on past work by using longitudinal data with three months between two measurement occasions (Time 1: N = 2243; Time 2: N = 1284) to evaluate whether sense of purpose predicted relationship status over time and how changes in relationship quality and sense of purpose were associated. Results showed that greater sense of purpose predicted maintaining a romantic relationship, but did not predict later romantic relationship quality, while higher romantic relationship quality predicted an increase in sense of purpose. Findings are discussed regarding why people with a higher sense of purpose may be more likely to stay in relationships as well as the role that positive romantic relationships may play in helping maintain a higher sense of purpose., Competing Interests: The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article.

Aims: To measure mortality rates and factors associated with mortality risk among participants in the SuperMIX study, a prospective cohort study of people who inject drugs., Design: A prospective observational study using self-reported behavioural and linked mortality data., Setting: Melbourne, Australia., Participants/cases: A total of 1209 people who inject drugs (67% male) followed-up between 2008 and 2019 for 6913 person-years (PY)., Measurements: We linked participant identifiers from SuperMIX to the Australian National Death Index and estimated all-cause and drug-related mortality rates and standardized mortality ratios (SMRs). We used Cox regression to examine associations between mortality and fixed and time-varying socio-demographic, alcohol and other drug use and health service-related exposures., Findings: Between 2008 and 2019 there were 76 deaths in the SuperMIX cohort. Of those with a known cause of death (n = 68), 35 (51%) were drug-related, yielding an all-cause mortality rate of 1.1 per 100 PY [95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.88-1.37] with an estimated SMR of 16.64 (95% CI = 13.29-20.83) and overall accidental drug-induced mortality rate of 0.5 per 100 PY (95% CI = 0.36-0.71). Reports of recent use of ambulance services [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) = 3.77, 95% CI =1.78-7.97] and four or more incarcerations (aHR = 2.78, 95% CI = 1.55-4.99) were associated with increased mortality risk., Conclusions: In Melbourne, Australia, mortality among people who inject drugs appears to be positively associated with recent ambulance attendance and experience of incarceration., (© 2022 The Authors. Addiction published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for the Study of Addiction.)

The current longitudinal study examined the predictive associations between the development of future perceptions in adolescence and depressive symptoms in adolescence and early and middle adulthood. Participants ( N = 1,527; 48.3% female; broadly representative of Western Germany with respect to race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status) were measured yearly in adolescence at the age of 12 to 16 years and then in adulthood at the age of 35 and 45. Future perceptions were assessed during adolescence, whereas depressive symptoms were assessed at the age of 16, 35, and 45. Three important results stand out. First, the measure of future perceptions functioned equivalently across adolescence. Second, the development of future perceptions during adolescence varied across individuals, though mean-level stability was evidenced in the sample. Third, individual differences in the level and change of future perceptions during adolescence predicted depressive symptoms in adolescence and adulthood. These findings demonstrate that one's perception of the future not only has short-term affective consequences but may have long-term effects on depressive symptoms beyond adolescence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).