Lifestyles and Stress: Materialism, Mindfulness and the Good Life

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Lifestyles and Stress Materialism, Mindfulness
and the Good Life

• Richard M. Ryan
• Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry, and
  Education
• University of Rochester

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Stress and Wellbeing
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Distinguished Eudaimonia from a life of
Pleasure Both ordinary people and people of
qualitysuppose that living well and doing well
are the same thing as being happy. But they are
in dispute about what happiness actually is, and
ordinary people do not give the same answer as
intellectuals. (p. 97, Nicomachean Ethics,
Broadie Rowe, trans.)
e.g., Aristotle
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On the good and happiness to judge from their
lives, most people, i.e., the most vulgar, seem
to suppose it to be pleasure that is why they
favor the life of consumption (Aristotle, NE,
pp. 97-98)
Caravaggios Bacchus
Caravaggios Narcissus
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Happiness belongs more to those who have
cultivated their character and mind to the
uttermost, and kept acquisition of external goods
within moderate limits. Those unsuccessful at
life are those who have managed to acquire more
external goods than they can possibly use, and
are lacking goods of the soul ...any excessive
amount of such things must either cause its
possessor some injury, or at any rate, bring him
no benefits Aristotle, Politics, p. 280, E.
Barker, trans.
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Messages

• One can purchase happiness
• It is important to consume
• Life is meaningful and people are successful to
  the extent they have money, possessions, and the
  right image

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• Gen Nexters
• 8 in 10 say getting rich is the most
  important, or second most important goal in life.
• Half state that getting famous is among their
  top goals.
• More would like to be a celebrity assistant
  than a Harvard Prof. or a federal judge.
• (Pew Research Center Report, Jan. 2007)

At the same time studies suggest this to be an
especially anxiety-prone generation, dealing with
not just a faster-paced, technology-dominated
society but also with their own lofty aspirations
and expectations. (Luther, 2009)
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First Foray (1993) Money and Materialism

• How important is money?
• How important are relationships, growth,
  community?
• Found that those who place a high value on money
  were more unhappy
• Dark Side of the American Dream
• (Kasser Ryan, 1993)

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Not all goals are created equal
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Intrinsic and Extrinsic Life Goals

• Different life goals are more or less
  facilitating of basic need satisfaction, and
  therefore of ongoing well being

• Intrinsic goals attainment relatively directly
  yields
• Basic Need Satisfaction
• e.g. goal of having deep and intimate
  relationships
• Extrinsic goals goal attainment is at best only
  indirectly related to Basic Need
  Satisfaction, and may even interfere with it
• e.g., goal of being rich or famous

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Aspirations Life Goals

• Extrinsic Aspirations
• Financial Success
• Social Recognition (Fame)
• Physically Attractive

• Intrinsic Aspirations
• Personal Growth
• Meaningful Relationships
• Community Contributions

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Aspiration IndexSample Items

• Financial Success
• I will be a very wealthy person.
• I will have many expensive possessions.
• I will be financially successful.
• Social Recognition (Fame)
• My name will be known by many people.
• I will be admired by many people.
• I will be famous.
• Physically Attractive Appearance
• I will successfully hide the signs of aging.
• I will have people comment often about how
  attractive I look.
• I will keep up with fashions in hair and
  clothing.

• Meaningful Relationships
• I will have good friends that I can count on.
• I will share my life with someone I love.
• I will have committed, intimate relationships.
• Community Contributions
• I will work for the betterment of society.
• I will assist people who need it.
• I will work to make the world a better place.
• Physical Health
• I will be physically healthy..
• I will keep myself healthy and well.
• Personal Growth
• - I will continue to grow and learn new things.
• - At the end of my life, I will look back on my
  life as meaningful and complete.

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Higher Order Factor Analyses of Aspiration
Importance Ratings
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Relations of the Importance of Intrinsic and
Extrinsic Goals to Well-Being in College
Students (n192)
Relative Goal Importance
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Relations of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Goal
Importance to Well-Being Among Urban Adults (n
100)
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Latent Mean-Level Differences for Intrinsic and
Extrinsic Goal Ratings
IV Intrinsic Values EV Extrinsic Values
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Correlations of Relative Intrinsic versus
Extrinsic Goal Importance with Well-Being in
Russia and the U.S.
Note. p lt .01. Life goal ratings are
calculated so that higher numbers reflect a more
intrinsic vs. extrinsic emphasis.
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Found in many samples

• Types of people
• Middle High School Students
• College Students
• Working Adults
• Parents
• Athletes
• Business People

• Countries
• Australia
• Brazil
• Denmark
• Germany
• Hungary
• India
• Russia
• Singapore
• S. Korea
• United Kingdom

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• But what if you are successful?
• Happiness and attainment
• Population trends
• Paradox of increased standard of living

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Subjective Well-Being of Four Groups Differing in
Attainment of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Goals
From Kasser Ryan, 2001
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Post-College Goals, Attainments and Wellness
Two Year Longitudinal Study, begun one year after
graduation from college Assessed Intrinsic and
Extrinsic Goals at Baseline, and Well-being Two
years later positive relation between goals
and attainments positive relation between
intrinsic goals and change in wellness
indicators positive relation between extrinsic
goals and change in ill being indicators
Niemiec, Ryan Deci, 2009
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SEM results depicting relations between goals,
attainment and change in well being over a one
year period (N147)
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How does materialism produce these negative
outcomes?

• Less autonomy day to day
• Greater stress
• Greater health risks
• Burden of things burden of debt
• Crowding out of satisfying activities, vocations
• Time deprivation
• Relationship costs

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Within-person effects Daily fluctuations
5
4
Person A
3
2
1
Daily Well-being
Sample Mean
0
-1
-2
Person B
-3
-4
-5
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
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Days
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Adult Working Sample
Ryan, Bernstein Brown, 2009
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Positive and Negative Affect on the Days of the
Week
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Need Satisfaction on Days of the Week
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Of course, at least shopping is fun, right??
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Two-Week Diary Study of Spending(tracked every
purchase of 5 or more, adult working sample)

• Wealthier people spent more
• Materialists spent more
• Increase in NA after purchases
• No change in PA
• The effect was attributable
• primarily to materialists

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How extrinsic goals, such as materialism, develop

• Deprivation of psychological needs
• Development of insecurity
• Exposure to materialist culture
• Parental and Peer Modeling

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Media Exposure
Over 35 hours per week in front of screens Four
hours per day of TV per child under 18 Well over
3 years of life in front of TV by age 50 Exposed
to 3000 ads per day Implicit and explicit
materialistic messages
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TV

• People who watch more TV are more materialistic
• Materialistic people like TV more
• Empty Time
• Cultivate insecurities

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Marketing to kids

• Advertising at its best is making people feel
  that without their product, youre a loser. Kids
  are very sensitive to that. If you tell them to
  buy something, they are resistant. But if you
  tell them that theyll be a dork if they dont,
  youve got their attention. You open up emotional
  vulnerabilities, and its very easy to do with
  kids because theyre the most emotionally
  vulnerable - advertising CEO (Harris, 1989).

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OK, but what should one do?

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Aspirations Life Goals

• Extrinsic Aspirations
• Financial Success
• Social Recognition (Fame)
• Physically Attractive

• Intrinsic Aspirations
• Personal Growth
• Meaningful Relationships
• Community Contributions

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Growth

• Meaningful vocations and avocations
• Challenges, novelty, learning
• Pursuing interests and values

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Community/Generativity

• Why Giving is Rewarding
• Autonomy
• Competence
• Relatedness
• e.g., Blood donations
• Daily prosocial acts

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Daily effects of autonomous and controlled helping
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Effects of Motivation on Outcomes of Prosocial
Behavior for Helper and Recipient
Pos. Affect Vitality
Self-Esteem
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Relationships

• Universally rated as the most important value
• Most important aspect of life satisfaction
• Most easily traded away for what matters less

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Nature
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Predicting Experience-Level Vitality from Person-
and Experience-Level Variables
Bernstein, J., Ryan, R. M., Brown, K. W. The
impact of nature on vitality
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The Walking Experiment Post (T2) Scores on
Well-Being Measures from Indoor and Outdoor
Conditions
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Condition X Immersion interactions
Extrinsic Aspiration
Intrinsic Aspiration
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Condition X Immersion predicting generosity ( of
people who gave)
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The path to Nature An SUV?

• Explorer
• Navigator
• Land Cruiser
• Tundra
• Bronco
• Voyager
• Safari
• Scout
• Highlander

• Mountaineer
• Sequoia
• Pathfinder
• Range Rover
• Overland
• Wrangler
• Trailblazer
• Expedition
• Cherokee

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About meaning

• Clinical realities
• What really matters
• Time as the only non-renewable resource
• Death experiment
• This moment, what to do with it?
• the ways in which less is more

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Hierarchical Regression Analyses Predicting
Psychological Health and Attainment of Intrinsic
and Extrinsic Goals
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Predicting Psychological Health and Death
Attitudes from Attainment of Intrinsic and
Extrinsic Goals
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Autonomy and Awareness
Awareness is the ground of autonomous
functioning lack of awareness makes one
vulnerable to being controlled Mindfulness open
and receptive awareness of what is occurring in
the present moment (Brown Ryan, 2003, JPSP)
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Mindfulness and Day-to-Day Autonomous Behavior

• Sample 2 Multilevel Modeling

Predictor Day-to-Day
Autonomy
Time of day 0.53
Day of study - 0.03
Weekly cyclicity -
0.51 Autocorrelation 0.02
Trait mindfulness
1.08 State mindfulness
1.59 p lt .01 p lt .001
p lt .0001
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Mindfulness moderates the relations of implicit
and explicit measures

• IAT assessed affect compared with self reports of
  affect. r.16, ns.
• Mindfulness moderates this relation

From Brown Ryan, 2003, JPSP
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Study 2 Relations of Stress and Wellness with
Mindfulness
Note Mindfulness was measured at month 1. Stress
indicators, coping, and well-being indicators
were measured at month 2. p lt .05. p lt .01.
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Study 3 Descriptive Statistics and Relations with
Mindfulness
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Integrating Attitudes Autonomy and prejudice
(Legault et al. 2007)
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Autonomous motivation to regulate prejudice
affects both explicit and implicit attitudes
Legault, Green-Demers, Grant Chung (2007),
PSPB, 33, 732-749

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Outcomes associated with greater mindfulness
Greater autonomy Better decision making Less
defensive reactions Lower incurred
stress Better coping with stress incurred
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www.selfdeterminationtheory.org
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Self-Determination Theorys Areas of Empirical
Inquiry see www.selfdeterminationtheory.org
Basic Intrinsic Motivation Cognitive Evaluation
Theory Internalization Organismic Integration
Theory Well Being Basic Need Theory and Hedonic
versus Eudaimonic Processes Culture and Gender
Universal Needs versus Culturally Specific or
Gender Specific Motives Materialism and other
Extrinsic Life Goals Acquisition and
Effects Energy and Vitality Determinants and
relations to health Mindfulness Its relations
to self-regulation and well-being
Applied Psychotherapy Treatment Motivation and
Maintenance and Transfer of Gains Education
Motivational Dynamics behind interest and
performance Health Care Adherence and Compliance
to medical regimens Sport and Exercise
Motivation Organizational Behavior and
Performance Managerial Climate Religious
Internalization and Motivation Environmental
Footprints and Consumer Behaviors Virtual
Environments and Video Games