Childhood adversity has been linked: These research-based findings are summarized at “Child Maltreatment: Consequences” on the CDC’s website, cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childmaltreatment/consequences.html.
research on resilience began: Information from this paragraph from Ann S. Masten, “Ordinary Magic: Resilience Processes in Development,” American Psychologist 56, no. 3 (2001): 227–38; and email exchanges with Masten in March 2016.
Steven Southwick...Dennis Charney: For the following paragraphs on the factors that explain resilience, as well as the quotes from the POWs, see Steven M. Southwick and Dennis S. Charney, Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
For children, especially: “Toxic Stress,” Harvard University’s Center for the Developing Child, developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/toxic-stress/.
religious and patriotic services: There, a young John McCain delivered sermons. See Jill Zuckman, “John McCain and the POW Church Riot,” Chicago Tribune, August 15, 2008; and Karl Rove, “Getting to Know John McCain,” Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2008.
by our genetic makeup: McGonigal, The Upside of Stress.
early-life experiences: The influence of early-life experiences on our stress response is touched upon by McGonigal, ibid. See also Linda L. Carpenter, Cyrena E. Gawuga, Audrey R. Tyrka, Janet K. Lee, George M. Anderson, and Lawrence H. Price, “Association Between Plasma IL-6 Response to Acute Stress and Early-Life Adversity in Healthy Adults,” Neuropsychopharmacology 35, no. 13 (2010): 2617–23; and Pilyoung Kim, Gary W. Evans, Michael Angstadt, S. Shaun Ho, Chandra S. Sripada, James E. Swain, Israel Liberzon, and K. Luan Phan, “Effects of Childhood Poverty and Chronic Stress on Emotion Regulatory Brain Function in Adulthood,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, no. 46 (2013): 18442–47.
Charney has said: “The Science of Resilience and How It Can Be Learned,” The Diane Rehm Show, National Public Radio, August 24, 2015.
resilience can be taught: Michele M. Tugade and Barbara L. Fredrickson, “Resilient Individuals Use Positive Emotions to Bounce Back from Negative Emotional Experiences,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 86, no. 2 (2004): 320–33.
Gregory Walton and Geoffrey Cohen: Description of this study from Gregory M. Walton and Geoffrey L. Cohen, “A Brief Social-Belonging Intervention Improves Academic and Health Outcomes of Minority Students,” Science 331, no. 6023 (2011): 1447–51; and email exchanges with Walton in March of 2016.
Abelson at the University of Michigan: James L. Abelson, Thane M. Erickson, Stefanie E. Mayer, Jennifer Crocker, Hedieh Briggs, Nestor L. Lopez-Duran, and Israel Liberzon, “Brief Cognitive Intervention Can Modulate Neuroendocrine Stress Responses to the Trier Social Stress Test: Buffering Effects of a Compassionate Goal Orientation,” Psychoneuroendocrinology 44 (2014): 60–70. I also exchanged emails with Abelson on March 16–18, 2016, about this study.
Research led by David Yeager: Yeager et al., “Boring but Important: A Self-Transcendent Purpose for Learning Fosters Academic Self-Regulation.”
As Stanford’s Kelly McGonigal writes: McGonigal, The Upside of Stress, 219.
In his classic work on grief: Harold Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (New York: Anchor Books, 2004), 147.
suffer well: The late University of Michigan psychologist Christopher Peterson used to say, I’m told, that resilience is the ability to “suffer well.”
7: Cultures of Meaning
St. Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle: I visited St. Mark’s for mass and Compline on October 4, 2015. Further information about the church and Compline from author interview with Jason Anderson on October 5, 2015; and Kenneth V. Peterson, Prayer as Night Falls: Experiencing Compline (Brewster, Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, 2013). Anderson is the director of the Compline Choir of St. Mark’s, and Peterson is a member of it. If you’d like to hear the service, check out the choir’s website, complinechoir.org.
handful of other churches: For example, Compline is offered at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Christ Church in New Haven, Connecticut; St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas; and Trinity Church in New York City.
“unmediated experience of the Divine Presence”: Peterson, Prayer as Night Falls, 9.
“Adults spend”: Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner, “Why Do We Experience Awe?” New York Times, May 22, 2015.
Joshua Bell stood in a Washington: Gene Weingarten, “Pearls Before Breakfast: Can One of the Nation’s Great Musicians Cut through the Fog of a D.C. Rush Hour? Let’s Find Out,” Washington Post Magazine, April 8, 2007.
“work-and-spend” mentality: Gregg Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse, 250.
social connections are becoming less: See Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community; and Stefano Bartolini, Ennio Bilancini, and Maurizio Pugno, “Did the Decline in Social Connections Depress Americans’ Happiness?” Social Indicators Research 110, no. 3 (2013): 1033–59.
“A transition from material want”: Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox, 211.
In his research, Inglehart discovered: Ronald Inglehart, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
“fourth great awakening”: Robert William Fogel, The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
Many teenagers are unsure: Damon, The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling in Life.
DreamCon: I attended DreamCon, and interviewed Kanya Balakrishna as well as a number of high school students there, on December 13, 2014. Information about The Future Project came from those interviews, as well as subsequent emails with Balakrishna and others at the organization. See also The Future Project for research findings about the program: thefutureproject.org.
society’s interest in purpose: Gabriel Bauchat Grant, “Exploring the Possibility of an Age of Purpose,” papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2618863.
As Bert and John tell it: Author interview with John Jacobs on June 12, 2014; and Bert and John Jacobs, Life Is Good: How to Live with Purpose and Enjoy the Ride (Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 2015).
the foundation has trained over: According to Charles Veysey, Chief Business Optimist at the Life Is Good Kids Foundation, on March 2, 2016.
Ian Mitchell...Craig Marcantonio...Allison Shablin: Three separate author interviews on November 3, 2015.
Aaron Hurst has called: Aaron Hurst, The Purpose Economy: How Your Desire for Impact, Personal Growth and Community Is Changing the World (Boise, Idaho: Elevate, 2014), 28–29. I also interviewed Hurst on June 3, 2014.
John Mackey...Raj Sisodia: John Mackey and Raj Sisodia, Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2014); see appendix A for the “business case for conscious capitalism,” 275–89.
“People are increasingly”: Rajendra S. Sisodia, David B. Wolfe, and Jagdish N. Sheth, Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Wharton School Publishing, 2007), 4.
“not engaged”... “actively disengaged”: Amy Adkins, “Majority of U.S. Employees Not Engaged Despite Gains in 2014,” Gallup, January 28, 2015.
feel satisfied with their jobs: Julianne Pepitone, “U.S. Job Satisfaction Hits 22-Year Low,” CNNMoney, January 5, 2010.
more engaged...far likelier to stay: For engaged and likelier to stay, see Tony Schwartz and Christine Porath, “Why You Hate Work,” New York Times, May 30, 2014. For more productive, see the research by Adam Grant covered in chapter 3; and Adam M. Grant, “Does Intrinsic Motivation Fuel the Prosocial Fire? Motivational Synergy in Predicting Persistence, Performance, and Productivity,” Journal of Applied Psychology 93, no. 1 (2008): 48–58.
a very potent motivating force: Adam M. Grant, “The Signifi
cance of Task Significance: Job Performance Effects, Relational Mechanisms, and Boundary Conditions,” Journal of Applied Psychology 93, no. 1 (2008): 108–24.
Teresa Amabile of Harvard: Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, “How Leaders Kill Meaning at Work,” McKinsey Quarterly, January 2012.
serious problems, especially at long-term-care: See Catherine Hawes, “Elder Abuse in Residential Long-Term Care Settings: What Is Known and What Information Is Needed?” in Richard J. Bonnie and Robert B. Wallace (editors), Elder Mistreatment: Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation in an Aging America (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2003); Claudia Cooper, Amber Selwood, and Gill Livingston, “The Prevalence of Elder Abuse and Neglect: A Systematic Review,” Age and Ageing 37, no. 2 (2008): 151–60; and the National Center on Elder Abuse, which compiles the research on elder abuse and neglect on its website, ncea.aoa.gov/.
In one study: The studies cited in this paragraph are summarized in a review of the research on elder abuse in long-term-care centers: Hawes, “Elder Abuse in Residential Long-Term Care Settings.”
a classic psychology experiment: Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin, “The Effects of Choice and Enhanced Personal Responsibility for the Aged: A Field Experiment in an Institutional Setting,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34 (1976): 191–98. For the follow-up study, see Judith Rodin and Ellen J. Langer, “Long-Term Effects of a Control-Relevant Intervention with the Institutionalized Aged,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35, no. 12 (1977): 897–902. Also, this study is described in Ellen Langer, Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility (New York: Ballantine Books, 2009). Beyond the plant manipulation, people in the experimental group were told that they were responsible for their own schedules and well-being, while those in the control group were told that the nursing home staff was responsible for them.
more purpose in life live longer: Patricia A. Boyle, Lisa L. Barnes, Aron S. Buchman, and David A. Bennett, “Purpose in Life Is Associated with Mortality among Community-Dwelling Older Persons,” Psychosomatic Medicine 71, no. 5 (2009): 574–79.
longevity: Neal Krause, “Meaning in Life and Mortality,” The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 64, no. 4 (2009): 517–27.
better immune functioning: Michael Steger, “Is It Time to Consider Meaning in Life as a Public Policy Priority?” Ewha Journal of Social Sciences 30, no. 2 (2014): 53–78.
more gray matter in the brain: Gary J. Lewis, Ryota Kanai, Geraint Rees, and Timothy C. Bates, “Neural Correlates of the ‘Good Life’: Eudaimonic Well-Being Is Associated with Insular Cortex Volume,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 9, no. 5 (2014): 615–18.
cognitive impairments, Alzheimer’s: Patricia A. Boyle, Aron S. Buchman, Lisa L. Barnes, and David A. Bennett, “Effect of a Purpose in Life on Risk of Incident Alzheimer Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment in Community-Dwelling Older Persons,” Archives of General Psychiatry 67, no. 3 (2010): 304–10.
strokes: Eric S. Kim, Jennifer K. Sun, Nansook Park, and Christopher Peterson, “Purpose in Life and Reduced Incidence of Stroke in Older Adults: ‘The Health and Retirement Study,’ ” Journal of Psychosomatic Research 74, no. 5 (2013): 427–32.
chances of having a heart attack: Eric S. Kim, Jennifer K. Sun, Nansook Park, Laura D. Kubzansky, and Christopher Peterson, “Purpose in Life and Reduced Risk of Myocardial Infarction Among Older US Adults with Coronary Heart Disease: A Two-Year Follow-Up,” Journal of Behavioral Medicine 36, no. 2 (2013): 124–33.
for cardiovascular disease: Toshimasa Sone, Naoki Nakaya, Kaori Ohmori, Taichi Shimazu, Mizuka Higashiguchi, Masako Kakizaki, Nobutaka Kikuchi, Shinichi Kuriyama, and Ichiro Tsuji, “Sense of Life Worth Living (Ikigai) and Mortality in Japan: Ohsaki Study,” Psychosomatic Medicine 70, no. 6 (2008): 709–15.
psychologists speculate that people: Michael Steger suggested this in a lecture he delivered at a conference in Vancouver in July 2014.
take better care: For research on the connection between meaning and healthy habits, see Kristin J. Homan and Chris J. Boyatzis, “Religiosity, Sense of Meaning, and Health Behavior in Older Adults,” The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 20, no. 3 (2010): 173–86; László Brassai, Bettina F. Piko, and Michael F. Steger, “Meaning in Life: Is It a Protective Factor for Adolescents’ Psychological Health?” International Journal of Behavioral Medicine 18, no. 1 (2011): 44–51; and Carole K. Holahan and Rie Suzuki, “Motivational Factors in Health Promoting Behavior in Later Aging,” Activities, Adaptation & Aging 30, no. 1 (2006): 47–60.
use preventive health services: Eric S. Kim, Victor J. Strecher, and Carol D. Ryff, “Purpose in Life and Use of Preventive Health Care Services,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 46 (2014): 16331–36.
Michael Steger has put it: From a class I took with Steger in May 2015.
According to the World Health Organization: “Ageing and Health,” World Health Organization, who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs404/en/.
in the United States, one fifth: “Rising Demand for Long-Term Services and Supports for Elderly People,” Congressional Budget Office, June 26, 2013.
their sense of purpose declines: Maclen Stanley, “The Pernicious Decline in Purpose in Life with Old Age,” Psychology Today, April 15, 2014.
Marc Freedman: Author interview on December 10, 2014.
“Nothing is so insufferable”: Blaise Pascal, Pensées, retrieved online via Project Gutenberg.
Pam Mulhall...Tom Hendershot: These examples are from the Encore website.
Global Age-Friendly Cities project: “Global Age-Friendly Cities: A Guide,” a report of the World Health Organization, 2007, who.int/ageing/publications/Global_age_friendly_cities_Guide_English.pdf.
New York: The information about the New York Age-Friendly initiative came from an author interview with Lindsay Goldman; the website agefriendlynyc.com, which contains a number of reports about the initiative, including “Toward an Age-Friendly New York City: A Findings Report” (New York Academy of Medicine, 2008), and “Age Friendly NYC: Enhancing Our City’s Livability for Older New Yorkers” (City of New York, 2009); and Hari Sreenivasan, “Age Friendly New York City Helps Seniors Stay Active in the Big Apple,” PBS NewsHour, September 4, 2013.
As a result of such programs: There are “Experience Corps” programs in a number of cities, and researchers have studied their impact on the students and the adults involved. See “Research Studies,” AARP Foundation, Experience Corps, aarp.org/experience-corps/our-impact/experience-corps-research-studies.html.
Isay got hooked: For information about Isay and StoryCorps, I relied on author interview with Dave Isay on October 6, 2015; and Dave Isay (editor), Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project (New York: Penguin Books, 2007).
Research confirms this: See Greg J. Stephens, Lauren J. Silbert, and Uri Hasson, “Speaker-Listener Neural Coupling Underlies Successful Communication,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, no. 32 (2010): 14425–30; and Harvey Max Chochinov, Thomas Hack, Thomas Hassard, Linda J. Kristjanson, Susan McClement, and Mike Harlos, “Dignity Therapy: A Novel Psychotherapeutic Intervention for Patients Near the End of Life,” Journal of Clinical Oncology 23, no. 24 (2005): 5520–25.
more self-oriented...less meaning: See Kathleen D. Vohs, Nicole L. Mead, and Miranda R. Goode, “Merely Activating the Concept of Money Changes Personal and Interpersonal Behavior,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 17, no. 3 (2008): 208–12; and Todd B. Kashdan and William E. Breen, “Materialism and Diminished Well-Being: Experiential Avoidance as a Mediating Mechanism,” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 26, no. 5 (2007): 521–39.
Mary Anna Elsey: Author interview, both inside and outside the booth, on October 24, 2015.
Conclusion
William Breitbart: Author interview on May 30, 2014; and William Breitbart, “It’s Beautiful,” Palliat
ive and Supportive Care 9, no. 3 (2011): 331–33.
“Everybody said how important”: Quoted in Melinda Beck, “A New View, After Diagnosis,” Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2009. This and several other quotes come from Beck’s article.
Jack Kevorkian: Dennis McLellan, “Dr. Jack Kevorkian Dies at 83; ‘Dr. Death’ Was Advocate, Practitioner of Physician-Assisted Suicide,” Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2011.
the Northern Territory...the Netherlands: Marlise Simons, “Dutch Becoming First Nation to Legalize Assisted Suicide,” New York Times, November 29, 2000.
legal in California...Oregon: Ian Lovett, “California Legislature Approves Assisted Suicide,” New York Times, September 11, 2015.
the Journal of Medical Ethics released: Saskia Gauthier, Julian Mausbach, Thomas Reisch, and Christine Bartsch, “Suicide Tourism: A Pilot Study on the Swiss Phenomenon,” Journal of Medical Ethics 41, no. 8 (2015): 611–17.
an “existential vacuum”: Colleen S. McClain, Barry Rosenfeld, and William Breitbart, “Effect of Spiritual Well-Being on End-of-Life Despair in Terminally-Ill Cancer Patients,” The Lancet 361, no. 9369 (2003): 1603–7; and William Breitbart, Barry Rosenfeld, Hayley Pessin, Monique Kaim, Julie Funesti-Esch, Michele Galietta, Christian J. Nelson, and Robert Brescia, “Depression, Hopelessness, and Desire for Hastened Death in Terminally Ill Patients with Cancer,” JAMA 284, no. 22 (2000): 2907–11.
eight-session group therapy: For a description of each stage, see William Breitbart and Allison Applebaum, “Meaning-Centered Group Psychotherapy,” in Maggie Watson and David W. Kissane (editors), Handbook of Psychotherapy in Cancer Care (Chichester, United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons, 2011).
“BC and AD”: Quoted in Beck, “A New View, after Diagnosis.”
The Power of Meaning Page 27