Women’s Self-Relevant Goal Pursuit in the Presence of Physical Pain: An Intraindividual Variability Approach

ObjectivesPursuing personal goals that are relevant to one’s sense of self is important for adjusting to age-related changes. Experiences of physical pain, however, are thought to threaten both people’s sense of self and their pursuit of personal goals. Although a majority of older women experience physical pain, little is known about their day-to-day regulation of their self-relevant goals in the presence of physical pain. The objectives of this study were to explore associations between physical pain and health goal pursuit on a daily basis for women who identified health as a part of their possible selves.MethodsWe took an intraindividual variability approach to analyze whether there were within- and between-person differences in associations between daily pain and daily health goal progress among 62 women who provided data over the course of 100 days, yielding 4,150 occasions of data.ResultsAt the between-person level, women with higher pain on average had lower health goal pursuit on average. At the within-person level, days of higher-than-average pain were associated with lower same-day health goal progress.DiscussionOur results suggest that pain interrupts regulation of a self-relevant goal at a within-person—not just between-person—daily level. Future work should consider how these daily, within-person, disruptions affect broader identity processes and overall well-being.