In plain language
A cancer diagnosis often forces people to confront what matters most to them. This study asked whether the way cancer patients relate to their personal values — why they hold them, and how successfully they live them — is connected to their well-being and distress. The researchers surveyed 107 people diagnosed with cancer at a public hospital in Australia, measuring their quality of life, distress, experiential avoidance, and their values across domains such as family, friendship, romantic relationships, health, and leisure.
The clearest result was that success at living one's values mattered. Patients who felt they were successfully putting their values into action — especially family values — reported better well-being, less avoidant coping, and less cancer-related distress. In contrast, pursuing health values out of guilt or shame (what the authors call introjected or controlled motivation) was linked to poorer well-being and greater distress. In other words, it is not just whether you value your health, but why you pursue it that matters.
The study also uncovered striking sex differences: success at friendship values was linked to less distress and better well-being among women but not men, whereas success at romantic-relationship values was linked to better coping and emotional well-being among men but not women. These findings suggest that values-focused interventions such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy may work best when they help patients succeed at valued living, address guilt-driven motivation, and take sex differences in social support into account.
Key findings
- Among 107 cancer patients, greater success at living personal values was significantly related to better well-being, better coping, and less cancer-related distress.
- Success at family values was the most consistent correlate of well-being — it was even more strongly related to physical well-being than success at health values.
- Pursuing health values out of guilt or shame (introjected motivation) was associated with higher experiential avoidance, lower physical and emotional well-being, and more distress.
- Success at friendship values was linked to less distress and enhanced well-being among women, but not men.
- Success at romantic/couple values was linked to better emotional well-being and coping among men, but not women; men who felt socially pressured about romantic values were less successful at them.
- Regression analyses showed experiential avoidance and value success each predicted unique variance in well-being, supporting ACT's view that these are related but separable processes.
How to cite
APA
Ciarrochi, J., Fisher, D., & Lane, L. (2011). The link between value motives, value success, and well-being among people diagnosed with cancer. Psycho-Oncology, 20(11), 1184–1192. https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.1832
BibTeX
@article{ciarrochi2011link,
author = {Ciarrochi, Joseph and Fisher, Danielle and Lane, Lisbeth},
title = {The link between value motives, value success, and well-being among people diagnosed with cancer},
journal = {Psycho-Oncology},
year = {2011},
volume = {20},
number = {11},
pages = {1184--1192},
doi = {10.1002/pon.1832}
}
Related work
- All publications by Joseph Ciarrochi (searchable, with free PDFs)
- Process-Based Therapy & Idionomic Analysis
Author: Joseph Ciarrochi (ORCID 0000-0003-0471-8100). Free copy hosted with permission for scholarly use. Please cite the published version via the DOI above.