Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Aug;90(4):541-558.
doi: 10.1111/jopy.12682. Epub 2021 Oct 29.

What do people find most meaningful? How representations of the self and the world provide meaning in life

Vlad Costin  1 , Vivian L Vignoles  1
Affiliations

What do people find most meaningful? How representations of the self and the world provide meaning in life

Vlad Costin et al. J Pers. 2022 Aug.

Abstract

Objective: Recent theories propose that global meaning in life (MIL) is based on feelings of coherence, purpose, and existential mattering. MIL has also been linked to mental representations-for example, beliefs, values, attitudes, and identities-that serve as "meaning frameworks" for interpreting the world and oneself. Combining these proposals, we predicted that beliefs, values, attitudes, and identities would foster a sense of MIL to the extent that they provide feelings of coherence, purpose, and existential mattering.

Method: Using multilevel path analysis, we tested within-person associations of coherence, purpose, and existential mattering with a sense of MIL across three studies (Study 1:208 US MTurk workers; Study 2:106 UK university students; Study 3:296 from a UK nationally representative Prolific sample). We explored the generality of these associations across mental representation types and individual differences.

Results: Participants derived greater MIL most strongly from mental representations that provided sense of purpose, followed by existential mattering. Sense of coherence was less robustly related to MIL across mental representation types and religious orientation.

Conclusions: Integrating prior theorizing on MIL, we conclude that mental representations function as "meaning frameworks" to the extent that they provide feelings of purpose, mattering, and, sometimes, coherence.

Keywords: coherence; existential mattering; meaning frameworks; meaning in life; purpose.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Benjamini, Y., & Hochberg, Y. (1995). Controlling the false discovery rate: A practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Methodological), 57, 289-300. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2517-6161.1995.tb02031.x
    1. Bergkvist, L., & Rossiter, J. R. (2007). The predictive validity of multiple-item versus single-item measures of the same constructs. Journal of Marketing Research, 44, 175-184. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.44.2.175
    1. Bergner, R. M., & Ramon, A. (2013). Some implications of beliefs in altruism, free will, and nonreductionism. Journal of Social Psychology, 153, 598-618. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2013.798249
    1. Burnham, M. J., Le, Y. K., & Piedmont, R. L. (2018). Who is Mturk? Personal characteristics and sample consistency of these online workers. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 21, 934-944. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2018.1486394
    1. Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 36, 181-204. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X12000477

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources