People who have meaningful lives generally experience less anxiety and depression. Meaning salience, or the awareness of the meaning in one's life, is believed to partially explain this relationship. However, in times of isolation, what might be most salient to people are the meaningful aspects of their lives that have disappeared. This study seeks to understand how making gained versus lost meaning salient affects anxiety and depression. Participants either wrote for 5 minutes about how their life gained meaning (n = 29) or lost meaning (n = 30) due to the coronavirus restrictions, or about music (i.e., the control condition; n = 32). Those who wrote about gained meaning experienced less momentary anxiety than those who wrote about lost meaning. In addition, meaning salience moderated the relationship between meaning and both anxiety and depression. Those who wrote about gained meaning appeared to exhibit a positive relationship between meaning in life (MIL) and both anxiety and depression, while those who wrote about lost meaning exhibited negative relationships. In all, this suggests that meaning salience is not always positive and that researchers and practitioners should consider how making positive meaning salient may be more beneficial than a general focus on MIL.

中文翻译：

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意义获得与意义丧失：冠状病毒大流行期间意义显着性对焦虑和抑郁的影响

过着有意义的生活的人通常会减少焦虑和抑郁。意义显着性，或对生活意义的认识，被认为可以部分解释这种关系。然而，在与世隔绝的时期，对人们来说最显着的可能是他们生活中那些已经消失的有意义的方面。这项研究旨在了解使获得的意义与失去的意义变得显着如何影响焦虑和抑郁。参与者写了 5 分钟关于他们的生活如何 因冠状病毒的限制而获得意义 ( n  = 29) 或失去意义 ( n = 30)，或关于音乐（即控制条件；n = 32）。那些写获得意义的人比写失去意义的人经历的短暂焦虑更少。此外，意义显着性调节了意义与焦虑和抑郁之间的关系。那些写获得意义的人似乎在生活意义（MIL）与焦虑和抑郁之间表现出积极的关系，而那些写失去意义的人则表现出消极的关系。总而言之，这表明意义显着性并不总是积极的，研究人员和从业者应该考虑如何使积极意义显着比一般关注 MIL 更有益。