News Release
October 25, 2005
For Immediate Release
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Contact: David Creswell
creswell@ucla.edu
UCLA Study Finds That Focus on Personal Values May Affect Health
Personal values have long been known to be an important part of life, but can they actually protect your health? A recent study, to be published in the November issue of Psychological Science shows that affirming an important personal value affects both psychological and biological responses to stressful tasks.
In a study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, UCLA psychologists instructed study participants to focus either on an important personal value, such as their religious or political beliefs, or to focus on a less important value. Following this task, participants completed a set of stressful tasks in the laboratory, including difficult mental arithmetic and the delivery of a five-minute speech to an evaluative audience. The findings were surprising. Participants who had reflected on an important personal value showed less biological reactivity to the stressful events, specifically, lower cortisol responses, compared to participants who had reflected on an unimportant value. Cortisol is a hormone that is released during stressful events and when stimulated excessively over time can lead to cognitive impairments and risk for physical disease. The implication of these findings is that value affirmation may make a stressful experience less so and over time have potential benefits for long-term cognitive functioning and health.
"This was a very intriguing finding, given that a subtle and very short exercise in thinking about personal values had such strong effects on biological and psychological stress responses," said David Creswell, the study’s lead author.
The investigators are following up these laboratory findings and testing how affirmation of personal values may be protective for people with chronic diseases, such as cancer.
Download the article. For more information, contact David Creswell at creswell@ucla.edu.
Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 general psychology journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information. The American Psychological Society represents psychologists advocating science-based research in the public's interest.