Abstract
Groups have their health and well-being impacted by satisfying their members’ needs and providing resources to help cope with threats. Multiple group memberships serve to accumulate these benefits and also provide resilience to the effects of group loss. However, the additional well-being benefits of belonging to multiple different types of group remain to be determined. In a preregistered cross-sectional survey in Nottingham, England (Study 1, N = 328), we found that group-type diversity predicted well-being and that this effect was fully serially mediated by increased creative self-efficacy, then reduced loneliness. To confirm our hypothesis in a more robust sample we conducted longitudinal analyses on the English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA) dataset (Study 2, N = 5,838) finding that group-type diversity at time one (T1) predicted well-being at T2 (4 years later), even when accounting for wellbeing and loneliness at T1. We discuss the implications for enhancing group-based health interventions.
Original language | English |
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Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin |
Early online date | 30 Sept 2023 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Early online date - 30 Sept 2023 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC; grant number: AH/X000044/1).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
Keywords
- group-type diversity
- loneliness
- multiple group membership
- social identity
- wellbeing
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Psychology