ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author focuses on discoveries from her Positive Emotions and Psychophysiological Laboratory to build a bottom-up, data-driven model for how individual variation in immunological, parasympathetic, and oxytocin profiles underpins individual differences in the capacities to experience positive emotions and purpose. She use the term "purpose" as an umbrella term to encompass these various forms of self-transcendence, for both its accessibility and its alliteration with positive emotions. The author also focuses on plausible biological pathways by which positive mind states, such as positive emotions and purpose, over time become linked to physical health. The broaden-and-build theory provides a theoretical backdrop for the present exploration of the biological underpinnings of positive emotions and purpose. Positive emotions and purpose, then, are dynamically intertwined, and each appears to play a vital role in shaping leukocyte gene expression, a plausible biological underpinning of a good life.
