IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v77y2022i3p493-498..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pain, Goal Engagement, and Eudemonic Well-Being: Moderation by Autonomous Motivation

Author

Listed:
  • Suzanne C Segerstrom
  • Addison D Monroe
  • Leslie J Crofford

Abstract

ObjectivesPain may decrease well-being in older adults by limiting social and leisure activities. However, some activities can exacerbate pain. We hypothesized that autonomously motivated goal engagement could ameliorate negative effects of pain on goal engagement and amplify positive effects of goal engagement on eudemonic well-being (EWB).MethodsMidlife and older women (N = 200) were oversampled for chronic pain. Daily diaries (n = 10,697) including goal lists and ratings, pain, and EWB were completed for 7 days every 3 months for 2 years.ResultsPain was not a correlate of goal engagement. More engagement was associated with higher EWB when motivation was autonomous. However, more goal engagement correlated with lower EWB the next day and, when not autonomously motivated, higher pain.DiscussionGoal engagement can benefit people with or without physical pain, but the motivation behind goal engagement is equally if not more important. Goals motivated by autonomous sources increase EWB and may protect against maladaptive patterns of activity associated with pain.

Suggested Citation

  • Suzanne C Segerstrom & Addison D Monroe & Leslie J Crofford, 2022. "Pain, Goal Engagement, and Eudemonic Well-Being: Moderation by Autonomous Motivation," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 77(3), pages 493-498.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:77:y:2022:i:3:p:493-498.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbab105
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:77:y:2022:i:3:p:493-498.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.