Social and emotional predictors of well-being

Today, I address three studies examining well-being. First, Courtney et al. (2023) published “Social Microclimates and Well-being” in Emotion. Here’s the edited abstract:

Emotional well-being has a known relationship with a person’s direct social ties, including friendships; but do ambient social and emotional features of the local community also play a role? This work takes advantage of university students’ assignment to different local networks—or “social microclimates”—to probe this question. Using Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) regression, we quantify the collective impact of individual, social network, and microclimate factors on the emotional well-being of a cohort of first-year college students. Results indicate that well-being tracks individual factors but also myriad social and microclimate factors, reflecting one’s peers and social surroundings. Students who belonged to emotionally stable and tight-knit microclimates (i.e., had emotionally stable friends or resided in densely connected residence halls) reported lower levels of psychological distress and higher levels of life satisfaction, even when controlling for factors such as personality and social network size. Although rarely discussed or acknowledged in the policies that create them, social microclimates are consequential to well-being, especially during life transitions. The effects of microclimate factors are small relative to some individual factors; however, they explain unique variance in well-being that is not directly captured by emotional stability or other individual factors. These findings are novel, but preliminary, and should be replicated in new samples and contexts. 

Although the sample is university students, it seems to me that the idea of social microclimate may well apply to students in high school, people who participate in groups (e.g., sports teams, faith-based groups, community organizations, etc.). The finding that belonging to an emotionally stable and tight-knit microclimate relates to lower levels of distress and higher levels of life satisfaction is important. I hope, as they suggest, that this work gets extended to other samples and contexts. 

Next, O'Malley, Glenny, Poppleton & Timulak (2023) published “A Qualitative Meta-Analysis Exploring Client-Reported Outcomes of Couple Therapy” in Psychotherapy. The edited abstract and clinical impact statement follow:

The quantitative reviews of the outcome research on couple therapy show that this type of therapy can produce positive outcomes for couples and improve relationship satisfaction. There is now also a number of qualitative studies in which clients report in their own words on the outcomes of couple therapy. This study aimed to meta-analyze the client-reported outcomes of couple therapy generated in the studies using qualitative methods. A sample of 15 primary studies examining clients’ reported outcomes of couple therapy was identified through an extensive literature search. Relevant qualitative data on the client-reported outcomes were extracted into a single data set. Similar outcomes were grouped into metacategories. The metacategories were then organized into several clusters of the client-reported outcomes of couple therapy. The meta-analysis yielded 25 metacategories which were clustered into seven main clusters, (a) seeing things differently; (b) changed behavior within the relationship; (c) improved experience in the relationship; (d) improved communication quality; (e) improvement in relationship functioning; (f) improved individual functioning, and (g) difficult outcomes of therapy. Clients reported numerous constructive (e.g., new understanding of the couple’s interactional functioning, improvement in the conflict management, new positive ways of relating and connecting, letting go of expectations imposed on the partner or changes within the self that may be one’s contribution to the relationship), and some difficult, outcomes of engaging in couple therapy (the clarity on the decision to separate). Clients report a significant variety of positive changes that they attribute to couple therapy, which include not only relational changes but also changes in the individual functioning.  Given the influence client expectations have on outcomes, it may help to check-in with, clarify and align expectations of individual partners at an early stage of therapy.

What I love most are the seven clusters they identify and this final sentence. This may be helpful to clinicians.

Finally, Lench, Reed, George, Kaiser & North (2023) published “Anger Has Benefits for Attaining Goals” in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Here’s the edited abstract:

Functional accounts of emotion have guided research for decades, with the core assumption that emotions are functional—they improve outcomes for people. Based on functional accounts of emotion, we theorized that anger should improve goal attainment in the presence of challenges. In seven studies, goal attainment was assessed in situations that involved varying levels of challenges to goal attainment. Across studies, anger compared to a neutral condition resulted in behavior that facilitated greater goal attainment on tasks that involved challenges. With a goal to solve difficult puzzles, anger resulted in more puzzles correctly solved (Study 1). With a goal to attain prizes, anger increased cheating rates and numbers of unearned prizes (Study 2). With a goal to do well in a video game, anger increased scores on a game with challenges to be avoided, but not other scores (Study 3). In two studies, examining the consequences of anger in response to the challenging task that was the focus of that anger, anger decreased reaction time with goals to win trials (Study 4), and predicted making the effort to vote in two contentious elections (Study 5). With a goal to protect financial resources, anger increased action taken to prevent loss compared to a physiological arousal condition (Study 6). 

Here, I like giving anger a positive role when people are faced with challenges. It seems to me that anger is often seen only as a negative factor. It’s important that professionals acknowledge the range of roles it may play. Although these three studies vary widely in their approach, I think that social microclimates, expectations of couples therapy, and anger as it relates to goal attainment are worth keeping in mind.