Sources of meaning in life: A study of age and gender differences

Pages: 536-544
Hasrat Dhanjal (Department of Psychology, Panjab University, Chandigarh)

The present study seeks to examine age and gender differences in the sources of meaning in life. Another aim of the study is to find out if age, gender and sources of meaning can predict happiness. For this purpose,120 individuals were taken and were divided into three age groups: young adults (18-29 years), middle age adults (30-59 years) and older adults (60 and above years) with n=40 each &gender: females and males with n=60 each. The scales used for the study were: Personal Meaningful Profile-Brief (PMP-B) by McDonald, Wong, and Gingras (2012) and Subjective Happiness Scale by Lyubomirsky and Lepper (1999). The significance of age and gender differences in the seven sources of meaning namely Achievement, Relationship, Religion, Self-transcendence, Self-acceptance, Intimacy & Fair treatment were calculated using Two-way MANOVA. The results indicated that age and gender had a statistically significant interaction effect on Achievement only at p=0.005 level. Intimacy (p=<0.001) and fair treatment (p=<0.05) were statistically significant with age as both variables increased with age. Achievement (p=<0.001) as a source of meaning had a statistically significant relationship with gender where males scored higher than females. The regression analysis indicated that all the sources of meaning together with age and gender produced 29.9% variance in happiness.