Lay beliefs about meaning in life: Examinations across targets, time, and countries

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Highlights

  • Meaning in life was perceived to be both created and discovered, and to be common.

  • Beliefs about meaning related to experiences of meaning in life.

  • Technology was perceived as both providing supports and challenges to meaning.

  • There were national differences in perceptions and experiences of meaning.

  • Relationships and happiness were rated as top sources of meaning across 8 nations.

Abstract

We examined how lay beliefs about meaning in life relate to experiences of personal meaning. In Study 1 (N = 406) meaning in life was perceived to be a common experience, but one that requires effort to attain, and these beliefs related to levels of meaning in life. Participants viewed their own lives as more meaningful than the average person’s, and technology as both creating challenges and providing supports for meaning. Study 2 (N = 1719) showed cross-country variation in levels of and beliefs about meaning across eight countries. However, social relationships and happiness were identified as the strongest sources of meaning in life consistently across countries. We discuss the value of lay beliefs for understanding meaning in life both within and across cultures.

Introduction

Meaning in life is a centerpiece of human motivation and psychological well-being (Frankl, 1946, Maslow, 1968). Psychologists define meaning in life experience as a subjective feeling state comprised of three central components: (1) significance, the extent to which one feels like they matter and are connected with others, (2) purpose, or engagement in goal directed pursuits, and (3) coherence, the degree to which one’s life and experiences make sense (Heintzelman and King, 2014, King et al., 2006, Martela and Steger, 2016, Park and George, 2013). Research on meaning in life, however, frequently sidelines this precise definition when gathering information from participants (Heintzelman & King, 2013). Instead, because meaning in life is conceptualized as a subjective feeling state, assessments typically use face-valid self-report items simply asking participants how meaningful they find their lives to be (e.g., Meaning in Life Questionnaire, Steger, Frazier, Oishi, & Kaler, 2006; Purpose in Life Test, Crumbaugh & Maholick, 1964). Certainly, a large body of evidence supports the predictive validity of self-reports of meaning in life, which predict a host of objective outcomes including physical health indicators (Czekierda et al., 2017, Roepke et al., 2014). However, we know little about what the average person thinks about key features of this often abstractly construed experience. As with beliefs about other feelings, beliefs about meaning in life may shape a person’s experience of meaning.

Lay views of psychological constructs can influence experience and behavior. For example, implicit theories about intelligence as malleable or stable can predict important outcomes including goal pursuit (Dweck, 1990) and academic achievement (Costa & Faria, 2018, though c.f., Li & Bates, 2019). Similarly, lay conceptions of well-being relate to experienced well-being (McMahan and Estes, 2011a, McMahan and Estes, 2011b). Those who believe that happiness is closely linked to relationships report greater life satisfaction, but those associating happiness with material possessions are less satisfied with their lives (Bojanowska & Zalewska, 2016). If lay beliefs about psychological constructs can shape experiences, it is important to understand how people view meaning in life and how these beliefs relate to the experience of meaning.

Past studies on lay beliefs of meaning in life fall into two categories: (1) those that examine broad beliefs of the good life, and (2) those that examine lay beliefs about the sources of meaning in life. First, lay beliefs of the good life tend to include eudaimonic aspects (e.g., meaning in life) of well-being alongside hedonic elements (e.g., positive affect; Furnham and Cheng, 2000, King and Napa, 1998, McMahan and Estes, 2011b). Importantly, these eudaimonic conceptualizations of well-being, such as self-development and contribution to others, have stronger correlations with multiple measures of experienced well-being than hedonic conceptualizations, such as pleasure (McMahan & Estes, 2011a).

Other work has documented perceived sources of meaning in life. Broadly, these findings suggest that meaning is comprised of cognitive, motivational, affective, relational, and personal components (Wong, 1998). More narrowly, social relationships have emerged as an important source of personal meaning, as nominated by lay people (Debats, 1999, Lambert et al., 2010, Wong, 1998). In one study, 82% of young adults credited their family and friends as contributing the most meaning to their lives (Lambert et al., 2010). Participants have also identified happiness as a central source of meaning (Lambert et al., 2010; though c.f., Wong, 1998).

Research on lay beliefs about the good life or sources of meaning provides limited insight regarding how lay people think about meaning in life and how these beliefs may relate to lived experiences of personal meaning. In the current research, we examine lay beliefs of meaning in life as constructed vs. discovered and common vs. rare. We also focus on how meaning in life is perceived for various targets, across time, and across countries.

Several diverging perspectives and scholarly levels of analysis are commonly used to conceptualize and study meaning in life. Some perspectives are concerned with reaching ideal statuses in moral goodness and activities that transcend personal achievement (Auhagen, 2000, Frankl, 1946). An alternate focus is on individual experiences of meaning in life at either a global or situated level (Park, 2013). It is important to expand these approaches to explicitly include the ways that lay people view meaning in life to appreciate how these beliefs may relate to their lived experiences of meaning in life. Two features of meaning in life that shape these broad perspectives center on the amount of effort required to experience personal meaning via construction or detection and its epidemiology as rare or common.

There exist varied perspectives regarding the level of effort required to attain meaning in life. Central to existentialist views of meaning is the notion that the human experience of meaningfulness is wholly the product of effortful construction against the backdrop of the inherent meaninglessness of the objective world (Camus, 1955, Frankl, 1946, Sartre, 1946, Yalom, 1980). Likewise, psychological conceptualizations of meaning in life often focus on meaning as a constructive process. For example, the meaning-making model (Park, 2010) focuses on instances in which individuals must effortfully construct meaning in the face of traumatic experiences.

While the primary focus in scholarly work regarding meaning in life has been on its creation, there is, as well, a side of meaning that is not actively constructed, but rather, simply detected (King & Hicks, 2009). Detected meaning in life may represent the default mode when one’s experiences are fitting with their expectations for the world—when things are going smoothly (King & Hicks, 2009)—while meaning construction is only required and enacted in response to disruptions such as trauma (Davis, Nolen-Hoeksema, & Larson, 1998) or stress (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). Supporting these views and counter to the idea that the experience of meaning requires cognitive exertion, meaning in life is positively associated with a reliance on intuitive information processing (Heintzelman & King, 2016). Meaning in life is also sensitive to seemingly trivial encounters. For instance, meaning in life is higher among participants who have been exposed to manipulations of positive affect (King et al., 2006), ease of processing (Trent, Lavelock, & King, 2013), or environmental coherence (Heintzelman, Trent, & King, 2013). Further, participants detect meaning even in trivial life events like watching a good movie or getting a bad haircut (King & Hicks, 2009), or engaging in mundane daily routines (Heintzelman & King, 2019). Some experiences of meaning do not require effortful construction, but rather simply the detection of meaning.

Differing perspectives on the effort required to experience a sense of personal meaning feed views regarding the prevalence of meaning in life. For instance, while there exists nuance across the field, existentialism and nihilism are historically rooted in the notion that human existence is essentially meaningless (Camus, 1955). The added barrier of constructing meaning on top of nothingness would seem to impede the prevalence of this experience and may beget the conclusion that meaningful lives are rare. Further, to the extent that meaning in life is categorized as a key element of eudaimonic well-being, characterized by self-realization (Waterman, 1993) or self-actualization (Ryff, 2012), it is often placed above hedonic well-being on a moral hierarchy (Ward & King, 2016), which can result in perceptions of the experience of meaning as less attainable, at least in comparison to pleasure or happiness.

Alternately, epidemiological data and systematic reviews of research using established measures suggest that meaning in life is a fairly common experience, with self-report data from large representative samples indicating that most people across a variety of life circumstances feel their lives are quite meaningful (Heintzelman and King, 2014, Kobau et al., 2010). Established sources of meaning in life, including positive affect (King et al., 2006), social inclusion and close personal relationships (Stavrova & Luhmann, 2016), religion (Steger & Frazier, 2005), and environmental coherence (Heintzelman et al., 2013) are readily available psychological resources (Cacioppo et al., 1997, Diener and Diener, 1996, Diener et al., 2011, King, 2012, Leary et al., 2008).

Scholars offer differing perspectives on key aspects of meaning in life—but the question remains: What do lay individuals—those who haven’t devoted their professional lives to the topic—think about meaning in life, and do these beliefs relate to their experiences of meaning in life? In addition, how do people perceive meaning in life across targets, time, and space?

People often hold unrealistically positive views of themselves (Alicke and Govorun, 2005, Pronin et al., 2002). Self-serving bias extends to self-perceptions of happiness and life satisfaction (Cummins and Nistico, 2002, Loughnan et al., 2010). In some ways, these inaccurate perceptions are adaptive, in that they are associated with higher well-being, adjustment, and motivation (Taylor and Brown, 1988, Taylor et al., 2003). On the other hand, exaggerated self-enhancements are also linked to negative personality traits, low self-esteem, and less personal growth (Brookings and Serratelli, 2006, Robins and Beer, 2001). With respect to meaning in life, past research found that self-ratings of personal meaning fell well short of conceptualizations of the ideal meaningful life (Wong, 1998). However, research has not examined whether people’s views of their own meaning in life diverges from how they view the meaning in life experienced by average others, which the present studies address.

Arguments that the postmodern world lacks meaning are common (Pennock, 2018, Roberts, 2007). The rise of mental illnesses such as depression, addiction, and aggressive behaviors has been attributed to an existential vacuum formed as a result of a perception of meaninglessness (Frankl, 1946, Pattakos, 2008). Further, many modern pursuits are perceived as shallow and lacking meaning (Pennock, 2018) and as an erosion of meaningful and purposeful traditions (Roberts, 2007). Do lay people similarly perceive a lack of meaning associated with modern life? Evidence pertaining to the roles of nostalgia and technological advances in relation to meaning in life may suggest that these beliefs are widely held.

Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past (Pearsall, 1998), and can act as a psychological resource in meaning-making (Sedikides & Wildschut, 2018). Nostalgia engenders a sense of purpose and meaning (Baldwin and Landau, 2014, Sedikides et al., 2018), reduces the search for meaning (Routledge et al., 2011), and can be used as a meaning-making device to counteract precursors of meaninglessness such as mortality threat (Routledge, Arndt, Sedikides, & Wildschut, 2008). The link between nostalgia and meaning in life may suggest that people perceive that lives in the past were more meaningful than lives in the present.

Perhaps the most distinctive hallmark of postmodern life is the rise of personal technology (e.g., smartphones), which now permeates almost every aspect of existence and thus holds inevitable implications for psychological experiences. Personal use technology can improve well-being through activities that promote positive emotions, social connectedness, and efficiency (Kushlev, 2018, Kushlev and Dunn, 2015), while also holding broad potential to disrupt well-being (Kushlev, 2018, Kushlev and Heintzelman, 2018).

Meaning in life may be similarly implicated in the rise of personal use technology. Mekler and Hornbæk (2016) found that human-technology interactions relating to the pursuit of personal ideals and achievements were strongly related to meaning in life, by way of need fulfilment. They also identify five components of the experience of meaning in technology use: connectedness, purpose, coherence, resonance, and significance (Mekler & Hornbæk, 2019). In contrast, technology use can interfere with experienced meaning in life. For instance, parents who were assigned to freely use their phones during a visit to a science museum with their children reported lower meaning in life following their visit than parents who were assigned to use their phones as little as possible during this time (Kushlev & Dunn, 2019). In the present research, we examine how lay people think of meaning in life across time and the perceived effect of modern personal technology on this experience.

Most meaning in life research has focused on this experience through the lens of participants in western cultures, primarily the United States. However, central aspects of the self vary across cultural contexts (Markus and Kitayama, 1991, Triandis, 1989). Cross-cultural research has identified variation in the conceptualization and experience of many subjective experiences as a factor of geography and culture. For instance, interdependent cultures view social belonging and understanding (Oishi, Koo, & Akimoto, 2008), and social appraisal (Suh, Diener, Oishi, & Triandis, 1998) as integral to happiness, in contrast to independent cultures which see happiness as internal and individually oriented (Lu and Gilmour, 2004, Pflug, 2009, Uchida and Kitayama, 2009). Furthermore, cultural differences in conceptualizations of happiness shape this experience (McMahan et al., 2014, Wong et al., 2011).

The focus on culture across the meaning in life literature is more limited (for exceptions see, Oishi and Diener, 2014, Steger et al., 2008). To conduct comparative analyses of subjective experiences across cultures, it is imperative to examine the cultural equivalency in the conceptualization of a given construct across samples. Thus, examinations of lay beliefs about meaning in life can contribute to the limited information regarding this experience across cultures in a number of ways. First, do broad beliefs about meaning in life (i.e., effortful vs. automatic; rare vs. common) differ across cultures? Additionally, do perceived sources of personal meaning differ around the world, and how might these beliefs relate to the experience of meaning in life in those contexts?

Two studies examined beliefs about meaning in life across targets, time, and countries. Study 1 assessed participants’ particular lay beliefs about meaning in life and well-being measures. Additionally, participants in Study 1 completed one of two sets of additional items to further address a variety of beliefs about meaning in life. Subsample A made meaning in life ratings for themselves and the “average person;” subsample B rated meaning in life for people across various times in history. Study 2 examined the experience of and beliefs about meaning in life in participants drawn from eight countries across the world. Data and materials for both studies are openly available on the Open Science Framework1, https://osf.io/rqngh/?view_only=248a926ca0174d52b7b895a30f45f021. We report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions (if any), all manipulations, and all measures in each study (Simons, Shoda, & Lindsay, 2017).

Section snippets

Study 1

Study 1 participants indicated their beliefs about the common, effortful, and mysterious nature of meaning in life, and reported on their own levels of meaning in life, psychological well-being, and religiosity to examine their relationships with beliefs about meaning in life.

Subsample A: Meaning in the lives of the self and others

We next sought to examine potential biases in the way that one thinks about the experience of meaning in others’ lives compared to their own lived experiences of meaning in life. Is there a divergence between the way people think about meaning in life as a concept that applies to other people and their own experiences of meaning in life?

Subsample B: Meaning in life in the past and present

Do people believe that lives are differently meaningful in the modern era compared to times past? We next sought to assess participants’ perceptions of personal meaningfulness across time and the role of technological advances in beliefs about experiences of meaning in life.

Study 2: Cross-Country conceptualizations of meaning

Is meaning in life perceived and experienced similarly around the world? To address this question we examined meaning in life ratings, sources of meaning in life, and beliefs about meaning in samples drawn from eight countries across Asia (Japan, Korea, Singapore), Europe (Germany, Norway, Portugal), Africa (Angola), and North America (United States). Study 2 addresses three central aims. First, this study allows a direct comparison of meaning in life levels across eight countries on four

General discussion

The beliefs a person holds about psychological constructs can influence their experiences and alter the manner in which they report about these experiences in a research setting. Because meaning in life measures rely on participants’ intuitive notions about the meaning of personal meaning (Heintzelman & King, 2013), it is necessary and important to understand the content of these lay perceptions. The current work examined perceptions about key elements of meaning in life, particularly those

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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