Maria Fabrizio for NPR
We know that happiness and social connection can have positive benefits on health. Now research suggests that having a sense of purpose or direction in life may also be beneficial.
To find out if having a sense of purpose has an effect on aging and adult development, Patrick Hill, an assistant professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, looked at data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study, which is funded by the National Institute on Aging.
Hill and his colleague Nicholas Turiano of the University of Rochester Medical Center looked to see how more than 6,000 people answered questions like “Some people wander aimlessly through life, but I am not one of them,” and other questions that gauged positive and negative emotions.
They found that 14 years after those questions were asked, people who had reported a greater sense of purpose and direction in life were more likely to outlive their peers.
In fact, people with a sense of purpose had a 15 percent lower risk of death,compared with those who said they were more or less aimless. And it didn’t seem to matter when people found their direction. It could be in their 20s, 50s or 70s.
Hill’s analysis controlled for other factors known to affect longevity, things like age, gender and emotional well-being. A sense of purpose trumped all that.
Hill defines it as providing something like a “compass or lighthouse that provides an overarching aim and direction in day-to-day lives.”
Of course, purpose means different things to different people. Hill says it could be as simple as making sure one’s family is happy. It could be bigger, like contributing to social change. It could be more self-focused, like doing well on the job. Or it could be about creativity.
“Often this is individuals who want to produce something that is appreciated by others in written or artistic form, whether it’s music, dance or visual arts,” Hill says.
It’s not exactly clear how purpose might benefit health. Purposeful individuals may simply lead healthier lives, says Hill, but it also could be that a sense of purpose protects against the harmful effects of stress.
An experiment in Chicago tested this theory. Anthony Burrow, a developmental psychologist at Cornell University, had college student volunteers of different races and ethnicities ride rapid transit through the diverse neighborhoods of Chicago, recording their emotions as individuals of different racial and ethnic groups boarded.
Earlier research has shown that when people are surrounded by people of different ethnic or racial groups than their own, their level of stress increases. Burrow wanted to know if thinking about their sense of purpose might reduce that stress.
He had about half the students write for about 10 minutes about their life’s direction. The other half wrote about the last movie they saw. They were all then given packets that listed the name of every stop. When they got to a stop, they were asked to assess how they felt and how much they felt that way by placing an “X” in a box next to negative emotions such as feeling scared, fearful, alone or distressed.
It turned out that the students who wrote about the last movie they saw experienced the expected levels of stress as the percentage of people of different ethnicity increased. But the students who wrote about their sense of purpose reported no feelings of increased stress at all.
More research is needed, but Burrow says his findings suggest that having “a sense of purpose may protect people against stress,” with all of its harmful effects, including greater risk of heart disease. And that may explain why people with a sense of purpose live longer.
Transcript
LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:
Scientists have shown that happiness and social connections can have positive health benefits. Now researchers find another aspect of well-being that may add years to our lives -having a sense of purpose. NPR’s Patti Neighmond reports.
PATTI NEIGHMOND, BYLINE: Do you feel you wander aimlessly through life? Or do you feel you have a clear direction and know what you want? 14 years ago researchers posed this and similar questions to more than 6,000 adults of all different ages across the U.S. And recently psychologist Patrick Hill with Carleton University in Canada analyzed how those people are doing today.
PATRICK HILL: And what we show in the study is that individuals who reported a greater sense of purpose and direction in life were more likely to outlive their colleagues by the time that we reassess them fourteen years later.
NEIGHMOND: In fact people with a sense of purpose reduced their risk of death by 15 percent. Compared with those who said they were more or less aimless. And it didn’t seem to matter when people found their direction, it could be in their 20s, 50s or 70s. Hills analysis controlled for other factors known to affect longevity, things like age, gender, emotional well-being, a sense of purpose trumped all of that.
HILL: Typically purpose is thought of as kind of a compass or a lighthouse that provides one this overarching aim and direction to follow in their day-to-day lives as well as in their weekly and monthly activities.
NEIGHMOND: Now of course purpose means different things to different people. Hill says it could be as simple as making sure one’s family is happy. It could be bigger like contributing to social change. It could be more self-focused like doing well on the job or it could be about creativity.
HILL: Often this is individuals who want to produce something that is appreciated by others, either in written or artistic form. Whether it’s music, dance, the visual arts or so on.
NEIGHMOND: It’s not exactly clear how purpose might benefit health, purposeful individuals may simply lead healthier lives but Hill says a sense of purpose may protect against the harmful effects of stress. Cornell University psychologist Anthony Burrow tested this theory. He had college student volunteers ride the train through the diverse neighborhoods of Chicago. Research shows when people are surrounded by people of different racial and ethnic groups their levels of stress increase.
ANTHONY BURROW: Participants were given a packet that had the name of every stop in it and when they got to that stop they were asked to indicate with an X, for several discrete negative moods, things like scared, fearful, alone, distressed.
NEIGHMOND: Prior to boarding the train about half the students were asked to write about their sense of purpose. The other half about the last movie they saw. It turns out those who wrote about the movie felt stressed when the train was dominated by different racial and ethnic groups and those who wrote about purpose didn’t feel any stress.
BURROW: So, if a sense of purpose in life, in what might otherwise be a stressful context or stressful setting can help people remain even keel that might deter or thwart these sort of downstream negative consequences that we see.
NEIGHMOND: Like all the harmful health problems of stress, including greater risk of heart disease and that could explain why people with a sense of purpose may live longer. Patti Neighmond, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
