Purpose-a cognitive process that defines life goals and provides personal meaning-may help explain disparate empirical social science findings. Devoting effort and making progress toward life goals provides a significant, renewable source of engagement and meaning. Purpose offers a testable, causal system that synthesizes outcomes including life expectancy, satisfaction, and mental and physical health. These outcomes may be explained best by considering the motivation of the individual-a motivation that comes from having a purpose. We provide a detailed definition with specific hypotheses derived from a synthesis of relevant findings from social, behavioral, biological, and cognitive literatures. To illustrate the uniqueness of the purpose model, we compared purpose with competing contemporary models that offer similar predictions. Addressing the structural features unique to purpose opens opportunities to build upon existing causal models of "how and why" health and well-being develop and change over time.What do volunteer services, social support, pet care, and religious attendance have in common? Recent studies indicate that people participating in these activities live longer than those who do not. Volunteers had a 60% lower mortality rate compared with nonvolunteers (Oman, Thoresen, & McMahon, 1999). Providers of social support had a 50% lower mortality rate than those who neither received nor provided social support (S. Brown, Nesse, Vinokur, & Smith, 2003). Hypertensive people who owned pets had lower blood pressure and lived longer, as compared with non-pet owners (Allen, Shykoff, & Izzo, 2001). Finally, frequent religious service attendees had longer lifespans compared with nonattendees or infrequent attendees (Strawbridge, Cohen, Shema, & Kaplan, 1997). What these findings have in common appears to be longevity; however, purpose may link these behaviors. We hypothesize that purpose leads to longer life span, fewer health care problems, and greater life satisfaction. Purpose, from our perspective, is not something merely to attain, but rather is an important predictive variable of physical health and mental health. Furthermore, our conceptualization of purpose does not rule out other routes to healthy living. However, when present, purpose is central to a person's life narrative. Neglecting its presence can lead to erroneous conclusions about "how" and "why" people behave as they do. What Is Purpose?Purpose is a central, self-organizing life aim that organizes and stimulates goals, manages behaviors, and provides a sense of meaning. Purpose directs life goals and daily decisions by guiding the use of finite personal resources. Instead of governing behavior, purpose offers direction just as a compass offers direction to a navigator; following that compass (i.e., purpose) is optional. Living in accord with one's purpose, however, offers that person a self-sustaining source of meaning through goal pursuit and goal attainment. Furthermore, purpose is woven into a person's identity and behavior as a central,...

Researchers interested in measuring individual differences in affective style via asymmetries in frontal brain activity have depended almost exclusively upon the resting state for EEG recording. This reflects an implicit conceptualization of affective style as a response predisposition that is manifest in frontal EEG asymmetry, with the goal to describe individuals in terms of their general approach or withdrawal tendencies. Alternatively, the response capability conceptualization seeks to identify individual capabilities for approach versus withdrawal responses during emotionally salient events. The capability approach confers a variety of advantages to the study of affective style and personality, and suggests new possibilities for the approach/withdrawal motivational model of frontal EEG asymmetry and emotion. Logical as well as empirical arguments supportive of this conclusion are presented.

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Brief individual preventive interventions for high-risk college drinkers can achieve long-term benefits even in the context of maturational trends.

We interact daily with computers that appear and behave like humans. Some researchers propose that people apply the same social norms to computers as they do to humans, suggesting that social psychological knowledge can be applied to our interactions with computers. In contrast, theories of human–automation interaction postulate that humans respond to machines in unique and specific ways. We believe that anthropomorphism—the degree to which an agent exhibits human characteristics—is the critical variable that may resolve this apparent contradiction across the formation, violation, and repair stages of trust. Three experiments were designed to examine these opposing viewpoints by varying the appearance and behavior of automated agents. Participants received advice that deteriorated gradually in reliability from a computer, avatar, or human agent. Our results showed (a) that anthropomorphic agents were associated with greater , a higher resistance to breakdowns in trust; (b) that these effects were magnified by greater uncertainty; and c) that incorporating human-like trust repair behavior largely erased differences between the agents. Automation anthropomorphism is therefore a critical variable that should be carefully incorporated into any general theory of human–agent trust as well as novel automation design.

Outcomes in depression treatment research include both changes in symptom severity and functional impairment. Symptom measures tend to be the standard outcome but we argue that there are benefits to considering functional outcomes. An exhaustive literature review shows that the relationship between symptoms and functioning remains unexpectedly weak and often bidirectional. Changes in functioning often lag symptom changes. As a result, functional outcomes might offer depression researchers more critical feedback and better guidance when studying depression treatment outcomes. The paper presents a case for the necessity of both functional and symptom outcomes in depression treatment research by addressing three aims–1) review the research relating symptoms and functioning, 2) provide a rationale for measuring both outcomes, and 3) discuss potential artifacts in measuring functional outcomes. The three aims are supported by an empirical review of the treatment outcome and epidemiological literatures.

The Mann‐Whitney U test, which is also known as the Wilcoxon rank sum test, tests for differences between two groups on a single, ordinal variable with no specific distribution (Mann & Whitney, 1947; Wilcoxon, 1945). In contrast, the independent samples t‐test, which is also a test of two groups, requires the single variable to be measured at the interval or ratio level, rather than the ordinal level, and to be normally distributed. We accordingly refer to the Mann‐Whitney U test as the nonparametric version of the parametric t‐test. Both tests require two independently sampled groups and assess whether two groups differ on a single, continuous variable. The two tests, however, differ on the assumed distribution. A nonparametric test assumes no specific distribution, whereas a parametric test assumes a specific distribution. Thus, the Mann‐Whitney U is conceptually similar to the t‐test for determining whether two sampled groups are from a single population. When data do not meet the parametric assumptions of the t‐test, the Mann‐Whitney U tends to be more appropriate.

As the planes hit the first of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, reporters canvassed the streets, stopping running locals to ask them what they were feeling (see Barrett, 2006b, p. 25). On that horrific day, two people responded very differently: My first reaction was terrible sadness. . . . But the second reaction was that of anger, because you can't do anything with the sadness. I felt a bunch of things I couldn't put my finger on. Maybe anger, confusion, fear. I just felt bad on September 11th. Really bad.With impressive detail, the first person described a series of specific emotional experiences associated with a desire to act. The second person, by contrast, struggled to represent her feelings in specific terms and in the end was left with a general feeling of unpleasantness.These two examples are typical of how people put their feelings into words. Theorists have proposed that people with the skill to verbally characterize their emotional experiences with granularity and detail are less likely to be overwhelmed in stressful situations (Lane & Schwartz, 1987;Lindquist & Barrett, 2008). This sequence of events, starting with the onsets of intense, distressing feelings, is represented in Figure 1. First, the act of using emotion-word labels to differentiate what is felt in a given moment conveys information about the situation and possible courses of action (Barrett, 2006b(Barrett, , 2012. Second, labeled emotions in turn become easier to regulate, and they either become irrelevant or facilitate a person's personal strivings (as in the case of, e.g., anger increasing someone's dominant stance during a confrontational negotiation; Tamir, 2009). Third, with a healthy management of emotions, a person is better able to pursue personal striving beyond the alteration or control of private 550708C DPXXX10.