title: Ceremonies of the whole: does social participation moderate the mood consequences of neuroticism?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The aim of this research was to test whether social participation is associated with improvements in mood and well-being, and in particular to test whether social participation might moderate the chronic distress associated with high levels of neuroticism (N).
  
  
  METHODS
  A rural Australian sample of 394 adults (54.3% female) completed questionnaires and participated in follow-up interviews. Social participation was indexed by community group membership, and operationalised for analysis in two forms: extent (number of group memberships) and presence (zero vs. one or more memberships). Mood was measured as Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA) as rated on the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule and well-being was measured with Diener's Satisfaction with Life (SWL) questionnaire. Items from Goldberg's International Personality Item Pool were used to measure N.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The extent of social participation was significantly associated with all three mood/well-being variables in bivariate analyses, and remained as a significant net predictor of PA and NA (beta = 0.11, P < 0.05, beta = -0.13, P < 0.05) when modeled with age, gender and income. In parallel, categorical social participation was found to be significantly associated with PA, NA and SWL in bivariate analyses and in multivariate analyses controlling for age, gender and income (beta = 0.11, P < 0.05, beta = -0.15, P < 0.01 and beta = 0.11, P < 0.05, respectively). The interaction term N*Social interaction was significantly correlated with NA in bivariate analyses involving both continuous (r = -0.14, P < 0.01) and categorical (r = -0.13, P < 0.01) measures of social participation, and in its continuous form remained a significant net predictor of NA after controlling for the main effects of N and Social participation (beta = -0.09, P < 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The present findings extend upon existing evidence that social participation tends to be positively associated with mental health by demonstrating the predicted effect across a comprehensive set of mood/well-being variables. Preliminary evidence was also obtained that social participation may serve as a moderator of the chronic distress associated with N. It is concluded that further research seeking to confirm the causal direction of the identified pathways is warranted.
authors.affiliation: Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC, 3122, Australia. gwm@swin.edu.au
authors.forename: Greg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.forename: Fiona
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Judd
authors.forename: Henry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.forename: Caitlin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fraser
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Komiti
authors.forename: Pip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pattison
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wearing
authors.forename: Garry
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Robins
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D002562:Ceremonial Behavior; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009497:Neurotic Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D012919:Social Behavior