Meaning in life: The role of personal resources

Pages: 907-914
Sangeeta Trama and Venus (Department of Psychology, Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab)

As an individual moves into the middle years, the question of his existence becomes significant. An individual who lacks meaning in life moves towards stagnation, i.e., perceiving his life to come to a standstill. Such individuals experience an existential vacuum, and feel that their life is not meaningful. Hence, it would be worthwhile to investigate the factors that contribute towards meaning in life in middle-aged people. Based on logotherapy, Frankl (1985) has given three primary ways to find meaning in life: experiential values, creative values, and attitudinal values. Based on this, it was postulated that creative people tend to move towards self-actualization. Therefore, it would be pertinent to study self-actualization in adults vis-à-vis their meaning in life. Apart from this, attitudinal values, such as psychosocial maturity and empathy, could also contribute towards life purpose. Still another construct of immense significance would be spiritual transcendence (experiential value) which could be an indicator of higher life goals leading to meaning in life. Consequently, the present study attempted to examine the relationship of meaning in life with self-actualization, psychosocial maturity, empathy, and spiritual transcendence for middle-aged people. The sample comprised 400 working adults (200 males and 200 females) in the age group of 35-45 years. Participants were from different cities of Punjab in India, belonging to middle to upper middle socio-economic status in adults. Stepwise multiple regression analyses were applied for adult males and females. Self-actualization emerged as the main predictor of meaning in life for adult males and females, and all three aspects of spiritual transcendence, viz., prayer fulfilment, universality and connectedness emerged as significant predictors (in same order of significance) for adult males. However, these did not emerge as significant predictors of meaning in life in females. Only one aspect of psychosocial maturity, i.e., identity emerged as a significant predictor of meaning in life in adult women. Hence, differential pathways for obtaining meaning in life were found for middle-aged men and women. The present investigation is therefore, a significant step in understanding existential issues empirically, and has very far-reaching implications in the realm of motivation and transpersonal psychology.