The Role of Purpose in Mood Regulators

There seems to be accumulating evidence that one of the benefits of feeling a sense of purpose is that it can help us remain even keel in moments of stress or challenge, and sometimes even uplifting experiences. We've done studies where we ask people to report challenges or difficult experiences in the unfolding context of their everyday lives. On days in which people tend to report stressers, having a sense of purpose seems to buffer or mitigate the ill intended consequences of stressers....