Associations of suffering with facets of health and well-being among working adults: longitudinal evidence from two samples

Abstract

Suffering is an experiential state that every person encounters at one time or another, yet little is known about suffering and its consequences for the health and well-being of nonclinical adult populations. In a pair of longitudinal studies, we used two waves of data from garment factory workers (Study 1 [T1: 2017, T2: 2019]: n = 344) and flight attendants (Study 2 [T1: 2017/2018, T2: 2020]: n = 1402) to examine the prospective associations of suffering with 16 outcomes across different domains of health and well-being: physical health, health behavior, mental health, psychological well-being, character strengths, and social well-being. The primary analysis involved a series of regression analyses in which each T2 outcome was regressed on overall suffering assessed at T1, adjusting for relevant sociodemographic characteristics and the baseline value (or close proxy) of the outcome assessed at T1. In Study 1, associations of overall suffering with worse subsequent health and well-being were limited to a single outcome on each of the domains of physical health and mental health. Overall suffering was more consistently related to worse subsequent health and well-being in Study 2, with associations emerging for all but two outcomes. The pattern of findings for each study was largely similar when aspects of suffering were modeled individually, although associations for some aspects of suffering differed from those that emerged for overall suffering. Our findings suggest that suffering may have important implications for the health and well-being of worker populations.

Prospective associations of multidimensional well-being with work distraction and job satisfaction: a two-wave study of US employees

“…For example, if interventions to promote emotional health or social connectedness are disseminated throughout a large organization, the implications for reducing work distraction and increasing job satisfaction within the organization could be quite substantial. One potential avenue that organizations could pursue to support the emotional health of their employees is to foster a psychological climate of caring (Cowden et al, 2022), which includes perceptions of collective pattern of fair treatment and recognition, trustworthy leadership, and respect (Weziak-Bialowolska et al, 2023). Organizations might also consider scheduling events and offering opportunities before, during, or after regular working hours to promote emotional health and build a sense of community in the workplace (Cornelissen, 2016;Latino et al, 2021).…”

Associations of orientation to promote good in challenging situations with distress and well‐being: Multi‐study evidence from three non‐Western Longitudinal samples

“…In support of its indirect benefits, a disposition to do good may serve a potentially protective role against subjective suffering. Overall suffering is predictive of a subsequent increase in psychological distress and a decrease in well‐being outcomes (Ho et al., 2022) as well as worsening mental and physical health (Cowden et al., 2022). Thus, an orientation to do good may increase the resilience of those coming out of a climate of conflict.…”

“…Each item was rated on an 11-point response scale (from 0 to 10), with orienting labels presented alongside anchor points at each end of the scale (see Supplementary Material, Table S1). Consistent with previous studies (e.g., Chen, Bechara, et al, 2022;Cowden et al, 2022;Ho et al, 2022), an overall suffering score was calculated by averaging responses to all seven items (Wave 1: α = .93; Wave 3: α = .95). Table 1, column 1 presents the descriptive statistics for distress outcomes at study baseline (Wave 1).…”

Associations of self‐forgiveness processes with distress and well‐being outcomes: Evidence from a longitudinal study of Indonesian adults

“…We follow recent recommendations (e.g., VanderWeele & Mathur, 2019) and practices (e.g., Cowden et al, 2022) by noting p ‐value cutoffs both before and after Bonferroni correction in all tables that report results of multivariate analyses. By using this approach, evidence can be evaluated using the conventional p ‐value threshold ( p < .05) and the Bonferroni‐corrected threshold ( p = .05/13 outcomes: p < .004).…”