Abstract

Objective: The relationship between emotions and various mental health outcomes is well-established. However, must negative emotions always lead to poorer mental health? The current study built on the recent idea of meaning salience to examine if a well-designed intervention could ameliorate the effect of negative affect. Method: We designed and implemented an intervention aimed at increasing mental health by focusing on an individual’s meaning in life. For 5 days, participants either listed their daily activities (Control Condition: n = 25) or additionally assigned meaning to each hour of their days (Experimental Condition: n = 26). Results: As expected, Day 1 negative affect predicted decreased anxiety on Day 5 in the control group. In addition, the intervention reduced the strong effects of negative emotions such that those in the intervention experienced a weaker effect of negative affect on anxiety and no effect of negative affect on general mental health. Conclusions: In all, the intervention directly increased mental health and moderated the effect of negative affect in the desired direction. Researchers and practitioners may consider this simple intervention to improve mental health on a daily basis.