Firmness of purpose in life significantly influences emotional state and autonomic nervous activity

doi:10.4236/health.2011.38084

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Vol.3, No.8, 507-511 (2011) Health

doi:10.4236/health.2011.38084

Firmness of purpose in life significantly influences

emotional state and autonomic nervous activity

Riichiro Ishida*, Tsueko Abe, Masahiko Okada

Division of Clinical Preventive Medicine, Niigata Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Niigata University, Niigata,

Japan; *Corresponding Author: ishida-riichiro@hb.tp1.jp

Received 23 April 2011; revised 2 June 2011; accepted 15 July 2011.

ABSTRACT

The present study was performed to clarify the

influence of having a firm purpose in life (PIL)

on psychological and physical stresses. Par-

ticipants were 59 subjects (19 males and 40 fe-

males) with a mean age of 30.9 years (standard

deviation, 12.1; range, 18 - 68 years). We used a

mental arithmetic (MA) test as a goal-oriented

stressor; the test was supposed to be finished

before a time limit expired without using pencil

and paper. We used a PIL test to assess the in-

tensity of personal meaning in one’s life, an in-

terest in mental arithmetic test (IMAT) to assess

the intensity of interest in the MA test, and an

anxiety inventory (AI) to assess the a nxiety level

of before and during the MA tes t. Heart rat e (HR),

systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood

pressure (DBP) and nose tip temperature (NTT)

were recorded before and after MA. We used

logistic regression modeling to estimate the

odds ratio (OR) of independent variables of age,

sex, PIL test score, AI score, HR, SBP, DBP, and

NTT before the MA test. Multivariate-adjusted

models showed that PIL test scores prior to the

MA test significantly predicted the observed

changes in AI score and HR. Other variables

were not significant predictors. In conclusion,

we found that a firm PIL decreased anxiety un-

der psychological stress as measured with the

MA test, even with objective evaluation by oth-

ers. Having a firm PIL also lowered the response

of the sympathetic nervous system to psycho-

logical stress.

Keywords: Purpose in Life; Psychological Stress;

Anxiety; Sympathetic Nervous Activity; Longevity

1. INTRODUCTION

Physical and psychological stresses can easily cause

anxiety and simultaneously activate the sympathetic ner-

vous system [1,2]. A “will” to seek meaning in life or to

achieve purpose in life (PIL) is significantly associated

with intrinsic motivation to get satisfaction and/or plea-

sure from an act [3,4]. Hence, persons with a firm PIL

are less sensitive to physical and psychological stresses

[5]. People exhibiting a Type A behavior pattern, char-

acterized by traits such as impatience, aggressiveness,

strong approval motivation, and a chronic struggle to

achieve one’s goal, are much more sensitive to stressors

[6,7]. It has been reported that type A behavior tended to

increase sympathetic nervous activity, generate reactive

oxygen species, and cause secretion of



-endorphin [1,

6-8]. It is also known that type A behavior is associated

with increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) [7].

Several tests have been devised to measure the inten-

sity of PIL. Crumbaugh and Maholic, for example, de-

veloped a PIL test to assess the intensity of personal

meaning in one’s life [9]; Sato and Tanaka modified this

test for Japanese people [10]. This test enables meas-

urement of intrinsic motivation, satisfaction, or pleasure

in life. Audio-visual stimulations such as watching a

kaleidoscopic roller coaster movie have been used to

show that persons with firm PIL exhibited less anxiety

and had lower sympathetic nervous system responses

compared with persons with less firm PIL [5]. The stim-

uli were physical and continuous without any appointed

goal. In daily life, however, there are many goal-oriented

stresses involving time limitations and being exposed to

objective evaluation. For example, company employees

have to accomplish a large number of tasks in a day,

students have to complete their homework assignments,

and housewives have to do many routine tasks every

day.

The present study was performed to clarify the influ-

ence of having a firm PIL on responses to psychological

and physical stresses. We hypothesized that people with

a firm PIL show low anxiety and low sympathetic nerv-

ous response to psychological stress.

R. Ishida et al. / Health 3 (2011) 507-511

508

2. METHODS

2.1. Study Population

Details of the subjects and the experimental protocol

have been described previously [11]. Briefly, 62 subjects

(20 males and 42 females) in a variety of occupations,

including housewife, salesman, elementary school teacher,

and technician, were recruited. Of these 62, 3 subjects

whose attitude and physical symptoms could seriously

affect the test results were excluded due to excessive

talking during the test, frequent arrhythmia, or excessive

time spent reading documents because of presbyopia.

Finally, 59 subjects (19 males and 40 females) with a

mean age of 30.9 years (standard deviation, 12.1; range,

18 - 68 years) participated in the study.

The subjects were instructed not to drink alcohol or

tea and not to smoke on the day of the experiment. No

instructions were given regarding food intake. The test

was performed on an individual basis. The ethics com-

mittee of the Faculty of Medicine of Niigata University

approved the study, and all subjects provided written

informed consent.

2.2. Goal-Oriented Stress Test

The goal-oriented stress we applied was a mental ari-

thmetic (MA) test that was supposed to be finished

within a given time limit without using pencil and paper.

An instructor (male, 57 years of age) administered each

test. First, the instructor explained the written protocol

on the panel as follows: “Please perform the mental cal-

culations as quickly and accurately as possible in four

minutes. Answer the resulting values when I say ‘stop

and answer.’ Do not talk during the test other than to

answer with the resulting values during the test.” Then

the instructor randomly chose one of three cards: “1000

– 6,” “1000 – 7,” or “1000 – 8,” and showed the card to

the subject. Subjects were requested to perform sequen-

tial subtractions as shown on the card. Thus, for example,

a subject who received the “1000 – 6” card would cal-

culate 1000 – 6 (= 994), 994 – 6 (= 988), 988 – 6 = 982,

and so forth.

2.3. Psychological Tests

The PIL test used here consists of 20 items to which

subjects expressed agreement or disagreement on a

7-point Likert scale. The questionnaire is outlined in

Appendix 1 [5,10]. High scores indicate a firm PIL [10].

The subjects were divided into groups according to their

scores: firm PIL (FPIL) (55 points) and weak PIL

(WPIL) (<55 points).

We also devised another two tests. One was the inter-

est in mental arithmetic test (IMAT) to assess the inten-

sity of interest for the MA test. The IMAT consisted of

only one question, “Are you interested in mental arith-

metic?” and was scored on a 6-point Likert scale (1: not

at all, 2: very weakly, 3: weakly, 4: somewhat strongly, 5:

strongly, 6: very strongly). The other was an anxiety

inventory (AI) to assess the anxiety level of before and

during the MA test. The test before MA consisted of the

question “Do you feel anxiety before MA?” and the test

during MA was the question “Did you feel anxiety dur-

ing MA?” These tests were each scored on a 6-point

Likert scale (1: not at all, 2: very weakly, 3: weakly, 4:

somewhat strongly, 5: strongly, 6: very strongly).

2.4. Measuring Autonomic Nervous

Function

After the subject had sat in a chair comfortably for 20

minutes, heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP),

and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were recorded using

an electric sphygmomanometer (ES-P1000, Terumo,

Tokyo, Japan) and nose tip temperature (NTT) was

measured with a skin thermometer (D717, Technol7m

Tokyo, Japan). These measurements were performed

before and after the MA test. As environmental condi-

tions affect the autonomic nervous function, room tem-

perature, humidity, illumination and noise were con-

trolled at 24.51C  1.02C, 58.64%  4.61%, 259.17 

78.21 lx and 53.10  1.37 dB, respectively. Atmospheric

pressure was measured at the time of the experiment.

2.5. Statistical Analyses

Univariate analyses were performed first to compare

age, sex, PIL test score, IMAT score, and environmental

conditions such as room temperature between FPIL and

WPIL groups. Then AI score, HR, SBP, DBP and NTT

were compared between values observed before and

during/after MA tests.

A chi-square test was used for evaluating differences

in the number of men and women between the FPIL and

WPIL groups. An unpaired 2-tailed t test was used to

evaluate differences in age and environmental conditions

such as room temperature between the FPIL and WPIL

groups. The Mann-Whitney Test was used for evaluating

differences in IMAT score between the FPIL and WPIL

groups. The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to eva-

luate changes in the AI score from before to during the

MA test. Paired 2-tailed t tests were used in evaluating

changes of the four autonomic indicators HR, SBP, DBP,

and NTT before and after the MA test. The basic char-

acteristics were expressed as mean  standard deviation

(SD).

Multivariate analyses were performed to evaluate

changes before and during/after MA tests as follows.

R. Ishida et al. / Health 3 (2011) 507-511

509

Change in AI score = (during MA test) – (before MA

test)

Change in HR, SBP and DBP = (after MA test) / (be-

fore MA test)

Change in NTT = (before MA test) / (after MA test).

We used logistic regression modeling to estimate the

odds ratios (OR) of independent variables for age, sex,

PIL test score, AI score, HR, SBP, DBP, and NTT before

the MA test. Subjects with PIL test score  55, AI score

before MA  2.05, HR  64.03, SBP  107.49, DBP 

72.88 or NTT ≤ 33.85 before MA were assigned a value

of 1 for each respective independent variable; otherwise

a value of 0 was assigned. For dependent variables, a

value of 1 was assigned 1 for each subject whose score

changes were: AI  1.10, HR  1.05, SBP  1.06, DBP 

1.03, or NTT  1.02. Otherwise, a value of 0 was as-

signed for that dependent variable.

Statistical significance was accepted at p < 0.05, ex-

cept for the tests of HR, SBP, DBP and NTT, which were

accepted at p < 0.05 / 4 = 0.0125 by Bonferroni correc-

tion. SPSS software was used for the statistical analyses.

3. RESULTS

3.1. Characteristics

The basic characteristics of the subjects as sex, age,

and IMAT score did not differ between the FPIL and

WPIL groups (Ta b l e 1 ). Environmental conditions such

as temperature and humidity were not significantly dif-

ferent between FPIL and WPIL groups (data not shown).

The recorded atmospheric pressures on the days of ex-

periments were 1015.50  4.94 hPa, and did not differ

between subject groups.

3.2. Anxiety and Autonomic Nervous

Activity

AI score, HR, SBP and DBP significantly increased

during/after the MA test compared with the values be-

fore the test, whereas NTT significantly decreased after

the MA test (Table 2).

Five logistic regression models for predicting the

changes in AI score, HR, SBP, DBP and NTT are pre-

sented in Table 3. The multivariate-adjusted models

showed that the PIL score before the MA test was sig-

nificant for predicting the change in AI score and the

change in HR. The other variables of age, sex, AI score

before MA, HR before MA test, SBP before MA test,

DBP before MA test, and NTT before MA test were not

significant in any of the multivariate-adjusted models.

4. DISCUSSION

We found that MA was a possible psychological

stressor because AI scores, HR, SBP, DBP and NTT all

were changed significantly by the test (Ta b le 2). These

results are compatible with previous reports that psy-

chological stresses caused anxiety and also activated the

sympathetic nervous system [12]. PIL score was nega-

tively associated with change in AI score and change in

HR (Table 3). Therefore, it can be concluded that the

persons with a firm PIL showed lower anxiety and a

lesser sympathetic nervous response to psychological

Table 1. Demographic and psychological characteristics of subjects by categories of purpose in life (PIL).

Characteristic FPIL group WPIL group p

N (male/female) 26 (6/20) 33 (13/ 20) 0.183

Age (year) 30.19 ± 13.02 31.39 ± 11.50 0.708

PIL test score (point) 61.12 ± 4.32 47.24 ± 7.28 -

IMAT score (point) 2.81  0.98 2.76  1.35 0.692

N: number of subjects, FPIL: firm PIL, WPIL: weak PIL, IMAT: interest in mental arithmetic test. Data are expressed as mean  standard deviation.

Ta b le 2. Anxiety inventory (AI) score, heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and nose tip

temperature (NTT) (N = 59).

Changes

Characteristic Before MA During/After MA p

AI score (point) 2.05  1.32 3.20  1.54 <0.001

HR (beat/min) 64.03  9.86 67.59  12.14 <0.0025#

SBP (mmHg) 107.49  15.87 112.86  16.73 <0.0025#

DBP (mmHg) 72.88  10.29 74.98  10.47 <0.0125#

NTT ()℃ 33.85  1.13 33.31  1.35 <0.0025#

MA: mental arithmetic. #: statistically significant after Bonferroni correction for HR, SPB, DBP and NTT.

R. Ishida et al. / Health 3 (2011) 507-511

510

Table 3. Adjusted odds ratios (OR) of demographic, psychological, and physiological characteristics (N = 59).

Change in AI score Change in HR Change in SBPChange in DBP Change in NTT

Characteristic OR p ORp ORP OR p ORp

Age (year) 1.04 0.155 0.970.238 1.040.135 0.99 0.790 1.030.205

Sex 1.38 0.619 4.620.046 0.510.392 1.03 0.968 3.210.079

PIL test score before MA 0.27 <0.05 0.18<0.0125#0.760.662 0.96 0.939 0.330.076

AI score before MA 0.51 0.296 2.610.150 1.990.275 1.52 0.477 1.510.493

HR before MA 0.950.179

SBP before MA 0.970.229

DBP before MA 0.94 0.057

NTT before MA 0.930.780

#: statistically significant after Bonferroni correction.

stress. The results are consistent with the previous study

[5].

Much attention has been focused on the biological re-

sponses caused by psychological stress [13-21]. Sympa-

thetic nervous activity in response to stressors easily

generates reactive oxygen species [1,2,22], which ace-

lerate lipid oxidation, gene dysfunction, and telomere

shortening [14-17]. It is interesting that the secretions of

dopamine and



-endorphin could be accelerated by the

psychological reactions as reward, satisfaction, and/or

pleasure based on intrinsic motivation or reinforcement

of motivation [18-21]. A lower response against the

psychological stresses with FPIL, therefore, could con-

tribute to longevity.

Limitations in this study should be noted. First, each

of the AI tests before and during MA and the IMA test

consisted of only one question. The tests should be vali-

dated for the number of questions, sensitivity, specificity,

and reproducibility in the future. Second, since the psy-

chological condition of subjects might influence their

test results, the experimental conditions, including in-

structors’ attitudes, should be carefully discussed. Third,

food intake before the experiment might influence the

autonomic nervous system. Further studies with a large

number of volunteers would be required.

In conclusion, we found that a firm PIL decreased an-

xiety during psychological stress caused by the MA test

even under the objective evaluation by others. Having a

firm PIL also lowered the response of the sympathetic

nervous system to psychological stress.

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Science Research

from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (No.17927020;

2005). The authors wish to express their gratitude to Yuko Ishida for

the data analysis.

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Appendix 1. Examples of the questions used in the purpose in life (PIL) test.

(1) In life I have:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

(no goals or aims at all) (neutral) (very clear goals and aims)

(2) Concerning man’s freedom to make his own choices, I believe man is:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

(completely bound by limitations (neutral) (absolutely free to make all choices)

of heredity and environment)

(3) Every day is

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

(exactly the same) (neutral) (constantly new and different)

(4) My life is:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

(empty, filled only with despair) (neutral) (running over with exciting and good things)

(5) If I should die today, I would feel that my life has been:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

(completely worthless) (neutral) (very worthwhile)