Thought suppression and meaning in life: a longitudinal investigation

The purpose of this study is to see if older adults who experience problems with thought suppression tend to encounter greater difficulty deriving a sense of meaning in life. Data from a longitudinal nationwide survey of older people (N=988) indicate that greater difficulty with thought suppression is associated with a decline in meaning over time. However, the findings further reveal that the relationship between thought suppression and meaning is nonlinear. More specifically, the results suggest that a sense of meaning in life declines at an accelerating rate across progressively higher levels of difficulty with thought suppression.