Abstract
Meaning in life has grown into a topic of great interest in psychological research. Conceptually, scholars differentiate between sources and components of meaning. However, the current scholarly views on meaning are highly cognitive and it is unclear to what extent they correspond with the understanding of lay people with cognitive difficulties, like those with Alzheimer’s disease. Using directed content analysis, we analyzed short descriptions of meaning in life of 126 older adults with Alzheimer’s disease, exploring whether the components (i.e., coherence, purpose, significance) and sources from the current literature could be identified and what additional themes emerged in their accounts. Replicating findings in other populations, family and relationships were the most prominent sources. Coherence and purpose were each described by 15% of participants, significance was almost not mentioned. We discuss the entanglement of components and sources in people’s descriptions and the possibility of a connection facet underlying meaning. We provide evidence for a distinction between cognitive and felt coherence and show that many participants talked about fulfilled and purpose instead of future-oriented purpose, emphasizing the need for a developmental understanding of meaning.
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Qualitative data (Dutch) may be requested through email to the corresponding author. The coding scheme is available on the Open Science Framework (osf.io/83ybh/).
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This work was supported by the Research Foundation Flanders under grant 1109417 N (to LD).
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LD, JD, and MV conceived and coordinated the study. LD collected the data. LD, TS, and JD performed the data analyses. All authors contributed considerably to the interpretation of the results and to the written manuscript.
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Dewitte, L., Schellekens, T., Steger, M.F. et al. What Can We Learn About the Concept of Meaning in Life from Older Adults with Alzheimer’s Disease? A Directed Content Analysis Study. J Happiness Stud 22, 2845–2871 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00351-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00351-4