On Panksepp’s Primary Emotional Systems, Steger’s Meaning in Life and Diener’s Satisfaction with Life: A Study Attempt from India

1 Introduction

Jaak Panksepp is known as the founder of affective neuroscience. The research area of affective neuroscience aims to shed light on the neurobiological basis of emotions in mammalian beings including humans (Davis & Montag, 2018). Panksepp’s work not only inspired neuroscientists but also psychologists to better understand the emotional nature of being human (Montag et al., 2021). Via methods such as electrical brain stimulation of phylogenetically old brain areas, Panksepp postulated that seven primary emotional systems have been homologously conserved in the mammalian brain (Panksepp, 1998, 2011). In detail, Panksepp carved out four pleasantly experienced primary emotional systems called SEEKING, LUST, CARE and PLAY. On the dark side of emotions, he observed the three negative primary emotional systems called FEAR, SADNESS and ANGER. Please note that these terms are written in upper case to not confound them with same sounding terminology in the scientific literature.

According to Panksepp’s affective neuroscience theory, primary emotional systems have been conserved across the mammalian brain as they bear evolutionary advantages for our species. For instance, arousing the FEAR system goes along with action patterns supporting the mammal getting out of the danger zone or to fight for one’s own life (Mobbs et al., 2007). Arousal of the SADNESS system can be stimulated by separation distress (Panksepp et al., 1978) and represents a natural response to the dangerous state of being alone vs in the safe space of a beloved group (seen from an evolutionary perspective). Our brain is hard-wired for social interactions and permanent absence of social experience can result in psychic pain (Panksepp, 2003; Tomova et al., 2021).

Panksepp’s theory is also of importance for personality psychologists trying to understand individual differences in human nature. In this context, it has been put forward that individual differences in brain structure and function underlying Pankseppian primary emotional systems might pave the way for human personality (Davis et al., 2003; Montag & Panksepp, 2017). Hence, not only the immediate arousal following stimulation of the seven primary emotional systems is of interest to be studied but also the more tonic activation patterns of these neural circuitries need to be considered, because they result in emotional traits (rather stable emotional tendencies of an individual). In line with this a meta-analysis showed that Panksepp’s primary emotional systems as assessed via the self-report inventory called Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) go along with meaningful associations with the lexically derived Big Five models of personality (Marengo et al., 2021). For instance, long lasting higher FEAR and SADNESS activities might represent the neuroanatomic bottom-up drivers of Big Five’s neuroticism dimension.

Panksepp’s theory is also of interest for clinical-oriented psychologists. The basic idea Panksepp put forward is that imbalances in primary emotional systems can pave the way for psychopathologies such as depression (Panksepp, 2006). Depression for instance would be characterized by an underactive SEEKING system (low motivation) and a high SADNESS system (prolonged social separation distress) (Montag et al., 2017, 2022). For deeper discussions on how depression relates to primary emotional systems, please see the following overview works (Panksepp & Watt, 2011; Watt, 2023).

For the present research, we chose to study life satisfaction, a topic belonging to the field of positive psychology, in the context of primary emotional systems. Of interest for our study, a recent work suggested that in particular, the negative primary emotional systems of FEAR and SADNESS were linked to lower life satisfaction as assessed with Ed Diener’s classic inventory (Diener et al., 1985) demonstrating that activity of these brain systems might undermine well-being (Davis & Montag, 2024). Insights of this study were based on two international samples (without assessing from which countries study participants actually came). Against the background that research using the ANPS to our knowledge is lacking from India (Montag et al., 2021), and against the background of the well-known problems arising from research basing insights on WEIRD samples (Henrich et al., 2010), the aim of the present study is to replicate the negative association between FEAR/SADNESS and satisfaction with life in a sample from India. Further, the present study aimed to shed additional light on the association between higher negative primary emotional system levels and lower life satisfaction. For this, the concept of meaning in life was assessed. According to Steger, meaning in life can be assessed with the “search” and “presence” facets (Steger et al., 2006). Whereas search for meaning in life has been associated with lower well-being, presence of meaning in life was associated with higher well-being (Steger & Kashdan, 2007). As a consequence, we expect that more negative trait emotionality (FEAR/SADNESS) might result in lower presence of meaning in life, which undermines well-being. FEAR and SADNESS might also be associated with more searching for meaning in life, which is linked to lower well-being. The hypotheses of the present study were also preregistered at the Open Science Framework before data collection: https://osf.io/jxdp9. Please note that we initially planned to investigate one sample. Due to some surprising findings we needed to back up our observation with a second data collection, whereas findings from this data collection are also presented.

2 Methods (I)

3 Results (I)

In Table 1, the descriptive statistics of assessment data for sample 1 are presented. We further present the gender analysis in Tables S1 and S2 in the Supplementary Material. Females, in particular, showed higher SADNESS scores than males (Cohen’s d = −0.83). Higher age among others was associated with lower FEAR (r = −0.29, p < 0.001) and lower SADNESS (r = −0.24, p < 0.001). Furthermore, age was positively associated with more satisfaction with life (r = 0.18, p = 0.009), as shown in Table 2.

Correlations presented in Table 2 showed that (i) FEAR/SADNESS robustly correlate negatively with satisfaction with life, (ii) FEAR/SADNESS robustly correlate negatively with presence of meaning in life, and (iii) FEAR/SADNESS correlate to a somewhat smaller extent positively with search for meaning in life. Satisfaction with life robustly correlates positively with the presence of meaning in life, and only weakly and negatively with search for meaning in life.

In line with our preregistration (see the abovementioned OSF link), we also conducted mediational analysis: The mediation model 1 investigated links between FEAR and life satisfaction and to what extent this would be mediated by the presence/search for meaning in life. As one can see from Table 3, a partial mediation model could be observed with presence being a (partial) mediator between FEAR and satisfaction with life. In other words, higher scores of FEAR went along with lower presence of meaning in life, which then in turn is associated with lower satisfaction with life.

Mediation model 2 investigated links between SADNESS and life satisfaction (Table 4) and to what extent this would be mediated by presence/search for meaning in life. As with model 1, a partial mediation was observed only with the presence of meaning in life and not the search of meaning in life.

Although these findings are straightforward and in line with our hypothesis, some surprises occurred in the dataset. For instance, in contrast to robust positive associations observed recently between PLAY and higher satisfaction with life (Davis & Montag, 2024), we basically observed null correlations in this sample. This led us to investigate also associations between PLAY and life satisfaction on PLAY item level. Here we were surprised to see that both inverted and normally poled items mapped in parts positively on life satisfaction (from the logic, this should be rather not the case). Without the ANPS being applied before in India and also taking into account that English might be difficult for Indian participants to understand (although we asked for English proficiency; see data cleaning process), we saw the need to recruit a second sample to seek replication of the main findings mentioned above and also to see if the null correlation between PLAY and satisfaction with life would appear again (recruitment of a second sample is a deviation from the preregistration process). Moreover, we were also surprised to see that the presence of meaning in life and search for meaning in life were positively associated, whereas a recent study presenting a Hindi version observed negative associations (Singh et al., 2018) – as observed in the Western literature (Montag et al., 2023). Another study also investigated the meaning in life questionnaire in an Indian sample, but worked not with a two-dimensional approach but a single meaning in life score (Deb et al., 2020). Therefore, their findings cannot be compared with our work.

We present the methods and results of the second recruited sample.

4 Method (II)

5 Results (II)

Tables 5–8 (plus ST3 and ST4 in the supplement) depict the same analyses, which were operated in line with the procedures described for sample 1. For reasons of brevity, we only mention the most important observations.

Please note that both datasets are openly available for further investigation possibilities via the OSF (see link above). We will focus here on the replication of the most important insights. First, we observed that higher FEAR/SADNESS again went along with lower life satisfaction. This seems to be a robust observation across samples (and fits well with the literature: Davis & Montag, 2024). Further, we could replicate that the association between FEAR and lower satisfaction with life was partially mediated by the presence of meaning in life. This mediation model for SADNESS and satisfaction with life could not be replicated. SADNESS interestingly was not significantly associated with the presence of life in the second sample.

6 Discussion

The aim of the present study was to replicate associations between higher FEAR/SADNESS and lower life satisfaction as recently investigated by Davis and Montag (2024). Indeed, we could again find these associations. For SADNESS associations were comparable to the earlier work (here: −0.36), but effect sizes were a bit weaker for the FEAR-SWLS association (r = −0.36). In Davis and Montag’s work: sample 1 = FEAR: −0.50/SADNESS: −0.39 and sample 2 = FEAR: −0.45/SADNESS = −0.34. In our second sample, same associations were also visible again, but effect sizes were overall a bit lower than in sample 1. Overall, the inverse relationship between the FEAR/SADNESS primary emotions as measured by the ANPS and lower satisfaction with life as measured by the SWLS seems to be robust.

The present study adds to the literature because data are presented from a less studied population (India) and as also presence vs search for meaning in life were tested as potential mediators between the aforementioned variables. In the context of the mediation models, we observed for sample 1 that both for the FEAR-SWLS and SADNESS-SWLS associations, only presence of meaning in life was a partial mediator. The second sample investigation supports again the validity of this FEAR-SWLS mediation model, but not the observations regarding the SADNESS-SWLS mediation model. As a consequence, the latter mediation model needs more attention in future works. This and some of the other results may have to do with the fact that data are presented from an understudied population (India), which provided some additional surprising findings. For instance, PLAY was not positively associated with satisfaction with life in either sample from India, which is different from what has been observed recently in two other samples (Davis & Montag, 2024). Further, presence of meaning in life and search for meaning in life were positively associated in sample 2, which is in contrast to what has been observed in both a Hindi speaking sample (Singh et al., 2018) and a German sample (Montag et al., 2023). In the original works by Steger, the same observations have been made (Steger et al., 2006; Steger & Kashdan, 2007). We simply cannot carve out with the present study, if these contrasting observations go back to cultural aspects of the present investigated samples or if English or language barriers play a role here (please note that we only included people in the present sample who mentioned to be proficient in English language). We also mention that we observed a relatively large number of participants answering varying numbers of consecutive items with same answers on the ANPS (see also other inventories), whereas it is not clear due to what reason this happened (of note: the most extreme cases having same answers across the complete ANPS and meaning in life questionnaire were filtered out before running the presented analyses and results did also not change much with filtering out the next “severe” group of participants with having such answer patterns on the ANPS – but these were post hoc analyses, which we only want to shortly mention and readers can investigate the data themselves). Against this background, the present research should be seen as a first attempt to study the presented research question. But it is clear, that questions remain regarding some findings, which cannot be answered. In this light, our study findings need to be seen as very preliminary. We invite other authors to revisit our findings – also by studying our data, being openly available (also of interest to take a closer look at the associations within the ANPS).

Some more thoughts on the positive associations between the presence of meaning in life and search for meaning in life in sample 2. What does this mean for the present samples 2? Do people who search for meaning in life have a higher chance to find meaning in life (and then actually find it)? Or does reaching meaning in life result in further search for additional meaningful aspects in life, e.g., also resulting in further self-actualization? As mentioned, the literature is inconsistent regarding the directions of associations (positive or negative) and also it must be further carved out what causality between the variables look like, which cannot be done here.

Although our data are of cross-sectional nature not allowing to infer causality (see also last point), theoretically certain stable expressions of primary emotional systems (as assessed here via the ANPS) could pave the way for lower presence of meaning in life, which then results in overall lower satisfaction with life. Search for meaning in life turned out not to be a mediator, perhaps as search for meaning in life is not robustly associated with satisfaction in life in our samples. In other words, presence of meaning in life is more relevant for understanding satisfaction with life than search for meaning in life. This comes not as a surprise, because earlier studies also observed that search for meaning in life is rather negatively associated with satisfaction with life (Steger & Kashdan, 2007).

The present study is to our knowledge also the first applying the ANPS 3.1. (or any ANPS-scale) in two samples stemming from India. India is very different in terms of its cultural background compared to often studied Western samples. In order to ensure that findings replicate across cultures beyond WEIRD samples (Henrich et al., 2010), research projects such as the present are important. This is in particular of importance regarding studies from India, because the cultural distance to the often studied samples from the US is quite large, and also some cultural distance to China has been reported (Muthukrishna et al., 2020). Further, we mention that the present study falls into the field of personality psychology. The term personality might be understood in different ways in traditional Indian culture compared to Western culture. As author Srivastava puts it (Srivastava, 2012): “In Indian psychological thought the term ‘personality’ has not been used in strict sense, instead the concept of Swabhaava referred in scriptures, covers all aspects of personality. Swabhaava is the essential quality” (p. 89). The study also describes different personality taxonomies which have been grounded in Ayurveda. In sum, these classic Indian views on personality might also shape findings such as of this study. As we have not studied Indian personality taxonomies, this is speculative and would make an interesting future research endeavor.

Also, please note that it would be interesting to directly compare the levels of life satisfaction, meaning in life and primary emotional traits across cultures in future studies – so far this only has been done on single measure level such as with the SWLS (Jovanović et al., 2022).

Aside from the expected results presented on FEAR and its association with meaning in life/satisfaction with life variables, we made some unexpected observations: In particular, it was surprising that PLAY was not related to satisfaction with life in the Indian sample. The positive associations between the presence of meaning in life and search for meaning in life in sample 2 were also unexpected. All these warrant for further investigation.

7 Conclusion

The present study replicated that higher negative affect (FEAR and SADNESS) taken from a Pankseppian affective neuroscience background robustly associates with lower life satisfaction. This association was partly mediated by the presence of meaning in life in the first of the two samples.