Abstract
In this preregistered analysis of existing data, we explored whether the association between urgency—a mood-based impulsivity—and risky and self-destructive behavior engagement is moderated by a sense of purpose in life. Results indicated positive associations between positive and negative urgency and recent risk behavior, and negative associations between a sense of purpose and recent risk behavior. For over 90% of the sample, purpose evidenced significant interaction effects with both negative and positive urgency, predicting fewer past-month risk behaviors (both the total number reported and the diversity of behaviors therein). Analyses by subdomain revealed that these interaction effects were most apparent in models predicting recent self-harm and heavy alcohol use. Explanations for this pattern of results and future directions are discussed.
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Notes
For those giving a non-numeric estimate, we chose to convert to missing because we were unable to approximate a count estimate based on this type of information. For those responding with a numeric estimate, we chose to convert to the named estimate because it was the most accurate value we could ascertain from such a response.
Results reported are generally consistent with results obtained when analyzing the complete data (i.e., before cleaning invalid, nonsense, and extreme responses). Between raw and cleaned data, Hypotheses 1 and 3 are fully consistent. With regard to Hypothesis 2 and the domain-specific robustness checks (i.e., any count-based model relying on total risk score), analytic deviations were required in light of the extreme scores present in the raw data. Not all models using the raw data converged, but when an appropriate model was located, results were in agreement with the clean data-based analyses. The most notable disagreement is that results were more extreme and significant with raw data-based analyses than those obtained using clean data.
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This research was supported by Hatch funds from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), U.S. Department of Agriculture under accession #1010766.
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Ratner, K., Porcelli, S.E. & Burrow, A.L. Purpose in life, urgency, and the propensity to engage in risky and self-destructive behaviors. Motiv Emot 46, 59–73 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-021-09915-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-021-09915-0