Linking Life Aspirations to Functional Medical Conditions: A Goal Contents Theory Perspective, 2025, Neufeld and Bradshaw

[Andy]

Abstract​

Psychological and motivational factors are implicated in various medical conditions, yet the link between physical health and life aspirations, as defined in Self-Determination Theory (SDT), remains underexplored. To address this gap and advance theory, we conducted a preliminary investigation of associations between aspirations and self-reported symptoms across five functional medical conditions—gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), headaches, sleep disturbances, and sexual dysfunction.

We surveyed 392 Canadian medical patients (Mage = 42.8 years, SD = 12.7, 50.5% women, 82.1% white, 75.3% with higher education) to assess whether the relative importance, likelihood, and attainment of intrinsic (e.g., personal growth, relationships, community, health) and extrinsic (e.g., wealth, fame, image) aspirations were associated with symptoms. Consistent with hypotheses, greater relative prioritization of intrinsic goals was linked to fewer symptoms—especially sleep disturbance—while extrinsic aspirations were associated with increased symptoms, particularly GERD. Sociodemographic factors, such as age, gender, education, religiosity, and subjective financial status, also showed associations with goal orientations and symptom burden, broadly aligning with SDT predictions.

Findings highlight the potential relevance of people’s personal goals in patient-centered care for functional conditions and underscore the need for further research exploring mechanisms and moderators of these effects.

Open access

 

[Utsikt]

This reads like someone trying to find data that corroborates their pet theory instead of trying to falsify it.

From limitations:

Third, although our hypotheses were grounded in SDT, we did not directly assess key mediating constructs, such as psychological need satisfaction, need frustration, or perceived stress. As such, we cannot draw conclusions about the causal mechanisms linking motivational orientation to physical symptom burden. Future research should incorporate multi-method designs, such as biomarker assessment, ecological momentary sampling, behavioral tracking, or qualitative interviews, to examine pathways of influence and validate these preliminary findings.

Ah, so the purpose of future research is to validate the hypothesis, and not to check if it’s actually true?

 

[rvallee]

Honestly, I cannot see how this is better than whatever was going on at the time when phrenology and other weird superstitious nonsense were popular. This junk is straight up abysmal. They feature the same magical thinking, but instead of real magic, it's just shitty stage magic where they can pull a rabbit out of a hat, after having put it there without being seen. It's not Merlin, it's Uri Geller.

What's most amazing is how they act as a perfect reverse compass. They look at associations, most of which make sense, and argue the least plausible direction of events. It ends up being nearly perfectly aligned with reality, but they keep going the wrong way anyway.