Positive social interaction can give sense of purpose to older adults: Study

Jul 08, 2022

New Delhi, July 08 (ANI): According to research from the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, having positive social interactions is associated with older adults' sense of purposefulness, which can fluctuate from day to day. And although these findings, published in the July 2022 issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, apply to both working and retired adults, the research found that for better and for worse these interactions are more strongly correlated to purposefulness in people who are retired. The association was much stronger in retired people, the data showed: that more positive social interactions showed a stronger association with a higher sense of purpose while more negative interactions were more strongly tied to a lower sense of purpose.