The within-person dynamics of affect, meaning in life, and perceived stress

ABSTRACT

While the relationship between meaning in life and affect has been examined extensively in individual differences and experimental studies, we know little about the intraindividual dynamics of the naturally occurring relationships between these constructs. We examined meaning in life, positive/negative affect, and perceived stress across 13 weekly assessments in a sample of 50–95 year-olds (N = 226). Overall, there was qualitative similarity across between-individual and within-individual analyses, each showing unique relationships between positive affect and meaning in life, as well as between positive affect, negative affect, meaning in life, and perceived stress. Moreover, cross-lagged panel analyses confirmed that positive, but not negative affect, may have a causal and unidirectional effect on meaning in life, and that positive affect, negative affect, and meaning in life each have unique lagged, week-to-week effects on stress. These results suggest that each of these related constructs plays a unique functional role in individuals’ mental health and well-being.

KEYWORDS:

• Positive affect
• meaning in life
• perceived stress
• cross-lagged panel analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/cqvxt/?view_only=872a3fe01ba54c32950e7c8da4439b12

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/cqvxt/?view_only=872a3fe01ba54c32950e7c8da4439b12.