Recent Findings from the MIDUS Study
The Importance of Loneliness in Linking Childhood Adversity to Early Mortality
This study looked at whether loneliness is a factor involved in the linkage of adverse childhood experiences (abuse, poverty) to premature mortality.
Chronic Pain is Not Just a Medical Problem
The latest MIDUS newsletter summarizes research on chronic pain, showing that although pain is a medical problem, it can also be influenced by social and psychological factors.
Links Between Chronic Pain, Work & Family Interactions, and Stress Hormones
Chronic pain can be significantly detrimental to people’s lives and can both aggravate, and be aggravated by, stress. This study looked at how stress at work and home interact with chronic pain and whether it disrupts the normal daily (diurnal) patterning of the stress hormone cortisol.
Positive Experiences that Improve Well-Being May Not be Available to Everyone
This study looked at whether socioeconomic status, race, or sexual orientation affected how many positive experiences participants had, and their psychological well-being and satisfaction with life.
Does the Opportunity for Good Psychological Well-being Vary by Level of Education?
Better psychological well-being, including whether individuals have purpose in life, how they grow and develop, and how they fulfill their potential, has been associated with improved health and living longer. This study looked at whether opportunities to develop and maintain this type of psychological well-being are equally available to everyone.
Does Experiencing Discrimination Make us More Forgetful?
This study explored whether being forgetful, such as not being able to remember a word or why you’ve entered a room, is worsened by experiences of daily or lifetime discrimination.
Cumulative Social Advantage is Linked to Better Health and Reduced Mortality
Previous research has shown that having good social connections is linked to better health, but only limited types of social connections have been examined. This study proposed a new model of cumulative social advantage that included twenty-one measures of social connection, which together more accurately reflects that way people actually connect with others, to see if it was associated with better health outcomes.
Can Emotional Support Help Reduce Stress Eating?
When eating in response to stress becomes habitual, it can lead to weight gain that can have negative health consequences. This study looked at whether receiving emotional support from others can help break the stress eating cycle.
Is What You Believe About Whether Money Buys Happiness as Important as Having Money?
Participants in this MIDUS study indicated what they thought was important to leading a good life. Researchers looked at how believing in the importance of having money or a high status job affected levels of happiness and well-being, and compared those views with those who actually had a higher income or a better job.
MIDUS Findings Archive
View all Recent Findings from the MIDUS Study
Visit the MIDUS website to learn more about the MIDUS (Midlife in the United States) study