Research links civic engagement to resilience
May 16, 2019
Science Daily/University of Otago
Flowers, home-cooked meals and time were among the items donated in the aftermath of the Christchurch terror attacks. A new study has found these simple acts of kindness not only benefited victims, but strengthened the well-being and resilience of those giving them.
Lead author, Dr Jill Hayhurst, of the Department of Psychology, says the research is the first to show a clear link between civic engagement and resilience.
"In times of challenge and tragedy it can be easy to consider our own well-being as unimportant or trivial, especially compared to those who directly suffered from the terror attack.
"However, in order to effectively support other New Zealanders, make the appropriate changes to our communities, policy, and government, and make Aotearoa safer for everyone, we need to be well and we need to be resilient.
"There's a growing body of evidence that shows civic engagement is not just good for the people we are helping, but also for our own well-being. This research shows that one way to ensure we are able to confront challenges or adversity in our future is by getting involved in your community, volunteering, or helping a neighbour," she says.
The researchers surveyed 530 young people, ranging in age from 16 to 32, about civic engagement, well-being and resilience.
The results, published in the New Zealand Journal of Psychology, showed the basic act of helping a neighbour can buffer people from adversity and promote well-being.
Following the events of March 15, volunteers flocked to Christchurch to help -- taxi drivers offered their services for free, people brought food and flowers to mosques, goods and care packages were donated, and millions of dollars were given to the victims.
These acts of kindness and community participation will not only help New Zealand become more just and inclusive, but will also benefit the well-being of those good citizens who helped.
"Contributing to society and supporting our own well-being are two sides of the same coin -- by being engaged and contributing we bolster our well-being and become more resilient.
"In so much that people who are flourishing are also highly engaged, it appears that we are designed to be good to each other and care for our communities," Dr Hayhurst says.
While all civic engagement measures were positively correlated to well-being, the researchers found specific acts made unique contributions to well-being.
In particular, civic intentions, such as planning to volunteer and help the community in the future, community belonging, social trust, generosity, and helping a neighbour, were especially important.
Historic civic engagement also buffered people from adversity, as contributions made within the past year had positive effects on people's well-being and resilience.
"As people face more and more challenges, in terms of environmental factors like poverty and climate change, as well as mental health issues, the potential for simple programmes like community service to improve resilience is really exciting," she says.
Dr Hayhurst believes further research on the subject is required, specifically using a longitudinal design exploring people's levels of civic engagement and well-being in response to terror attacks, and exploring the roles that community belonging and social identity play in civic engagement outcomes.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190516101436.htm
For people with strong life purpose, making healthier choices may take less effort
May 14, 2019
Science Daily/University of Pennsylvania
Ever wonder how some people seem to meet their fitness goals with ease and love eating healthy foods while others constantly struggle to do either? According to a new study from the Communication Neuroscience Lab at the Annenberg School, people with stronger life purpose are more likely to accept messages promoting health behavior change than those with a weaker sense of purpose. And this might be because they experience less decisional conflict while considering health advice.
"Purpose in life has been robustly associated with health in previous studies," says postdoctoral fellow Yoona Kang, lead author of the study, "but the mechanism through which life purpose may promote healthy living has been unclear."
For this study, published in Health Psychology, Kang and her co-authors chose to test out a theory: that making health decisions might take less effort for those with higher sense of purpose in life. According to Kang, health decisions, even those as simple and mundane as choosing between the elevator and the stairs, involve some amount of decisional conflict. But what if some people experience less conflict than others when considering these options, perhaps because they have a stronger guiding purpose that helps resolve the conflicts?
To test this idea, the researchers recruited sedentary people who needed to exercise more. (To be selected for the study, participants had to be overweight or obese and had to have engaged in fewer than 200 minutes of physical activity in the seven days prior to the screening.) Participants completed a survey about their life purpose by indicating the degree to which they agreed or disagreed with statements like "I have a sense of direction and purpose in my life" or "I don't have a good sense of what it is I'm trying to accomplish in life." Next, they were shown health messages promoting physical activity. Their responses to the messages were monitored by an fMRI scanner, focusing on brain regions that tend to be active when people aren't sure what to choose or when they feel conflicted.
Those participants who reported a stronger sense of life purpose were more likely to agree with the health messages and to have less activity in brain regions associated with conflict-processing. In fact, the researchers were able to predict how likely it was that a person would agree with health messages based on the degree of brain activity in these regions.
"We conduct studies both to understand how different kinds of health messaging can help transform people's behaviors and why some people might be more susceptible than others," says Emily Falk, director of the Communication Neuroscience Lab. "This study does a nice job starting to unpack reasons why people who have a higher sense of purpose in life might be more able to take advantage of this messaging when they encounter it."
Building on this study, Kang's next research project will examine the interactions between genes, brain activity, and life purpose. Funded by the Mind and Life PEACE Grant, she will test whether having certain genes may predict greater synchronization between neural regions associated with reward sensitivity and social sensitivity, and whether activity in these neural regions may, in turn, predict the strength of life purpose.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190514143248.htm