Hiding in plain sight: Older U.S. purpose exemplars

ABSTRACT

Despite significant research on purpose in adolescence and early adulthood, little is known about purpose in older adults. This paper defines purpose as ongoing commitment to and sustained action toward goals that are meaningful to the self and aim to contribute beyond the self. This study of purpose in later life draws on interviews of 102 respondents drawn from a U.S. nationally representative sample of 1198 men and women aged 50–92. Eighteen interviewees are identified as exemplars of purpose beyond the self and are matched with a comparison group of non-purposeful peers. Interview coding revealed that, in contrast to the non-purposeful comparison group, the purpose exemplars describe their lives as including several interconnected sources of well-being: purpose beyond the self, positive relationships, positive life engagement, a sense of competence, and freedom balanced with the desire to contribute. Implications for practitioners and the public are discussed.     

The value of life purpose: Purpose as a mediator of faith and well-being

This study investigated the relationship between faith, life purpose, and well-being, and the potential mediational effects of life purpose between faith and well-being. One hundred and three male and female college students completed a life purpose measure designed for the current study, the General Life Purpose Scale, as well as the Perceived Wellness Scale (Adams, T.B. (1995). The conceptualization and measurement of wellness (Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1995). Dissertation Abstracts International, 56(6–B), 3111) and the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire (Plante, T.G., & Boccaccini, M.T. (1997). The Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire. Pastoral Psychology, 45, 375–387). Results indicated that life purpose significantly mediated the relationship between faith and well-being. The importance of these findings for clinicians and educators is discussed.     

“If only I had” versus “If only I had not”: Mental deletions,mental additions,and perceptions of meaning in life events

ABSTRACT

The present research investigated the relationship between meaning perceptions and the structure of counterfactual thoughts. In Study 1, participants reflected on how turning points in their lives could have turned out otherwise. Those who were instructed to engage in subtractive (e.g. If only I had not done X…”) counterfactual thinking (SCT) about those turning points subsequently reported higher meaning perceptions than did those who engaged in additive (e.g. ‘If only I had done X…’) counterfactual thinking (ACT). In Study 2, participants who reflected upon life events from the perspective of understanding the past (versus preparing for the future) tended to engage in more SCT than ACT. Finally, in Study 3, participants engaged in more SCT than ACT about life events whose meaning was perceived as certain (as opposed to uncertain) – presumably to maintain their pre-existing sense of meaning. Implications for the study of counterfactual thinking and meaning are discussed.     

Beyond-personal love – Experiencing love beyond the person

ABSTRACT

Love is seen as interpersonal phenomenon in western society. The love of things that are non-interpersonal or ‘beyond-personal’ is less understood. A sample of 208 adults responded to a questionnaire asking what they loved, and how much they loved 61 common objects, activities, experiences and ideas. An exploratory factor analysis yielded five distinct categories of beyond-personal love including spiritual ideology, physical activity, material objects, hedonic experiences and social experiences. Loving physical activities predicted life satisfaction, happiness, and presence of meaning. Loving social experiences predicted happiness and presence of meaning. Loving hedonic experiences, spiritual ideas or material objects did not predict any of the outcome variables when all factors were considered, but material love was correlated with search for meaning. Results show that beyond-personal love can be considered adaptive, yet the target of beyond-personal love can predict whether one feels life satisfaction, feels subjectively happy or has meaning in one’s life.     

Structural properties of personal meaning systems: A new approach to measuring meaning of life

This article introduces a new qualitative–quantitative approach to assess meaning of life. The participants described their sources of meaning and how they were interconnected. Four quantitative measures for (1) the accessibility of meaning-related knowledge, the degree of (2) differentiation and (3) elaboration of personal meaning systems, and (4) their coherence were calculated. The sample consisted of 59 theology and science students. The study tested (a) whether the structural properties of personal meaning systems predicted health and well-being, and (b) reflected different degrees of expertise in constructing meaning. Differentiation, elaboration, and coherence measures correlated with health and well-being and predicted life satisfaction. Theology students presented more differentiated, elaborated, and coherent personal meaning systems than science students. Both results indicate that assessing structural properties of personal meaning systems can be a promising new approach to measure meaning of life.     

Purpose,hope, and life satisfaction in three age groups

Using the Revised Youth Purpose Survey (Bundick et al., 2006 Bundick, M, Andrews, M, Jones, A, Mariano, JM, Bronk, KC and Damon, W. 2006. Revised youth purpose survey, Stanford, CA: Unpublished instrument, Stanford Center on Adolescence.  [Google Scholar]), the Trait Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1991 Snyder, CR. 2003. March). Measuring hope in children. Paper presented at the Child Trends Indicators of Positive Development Conference. 2003, Washington, DC.  [Google Scholar]), and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985 Diener, E, Emmons, RA, Larsen, RJ and Griffin, S. 1985. The Satisfaction With Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49: 71–75. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the present study examined the relationship among purpose, hope, and life satisfaction among 153 adolescents, 237 emerging adults, and 416 adults (N = 806). Results of this cross-sectional study revealed that having identified a purpose in life was associated with greater life satisfaction at these three stages of life. However, searching for a purpose was only associated with increased life satisfaction during adolescence and emerging adulthood. Additionally, aspects of hope mediated the relationship between purpose and life satisfaction at all three stages of life. Implications of these results for effectively fostering purpose are discussed.     

Tone of voice guides word learning in informative referential contexts

Listeners infer which object in a visual scene a speaker refers to from the systematic variation of the speaker's tone of voice (ToV). We examined whether ToV also guides word learning. During exposure, participants heard novel adjectives (e.g., “daxen”) spoken with a ToV representing hot, cold, strong, weak, big, or small while viewing picture pairs representing the meaning of the adjective and its antonym (e.g., elephant–ant for big–small). Eye fixations were recorded to monitor referent detection and learning. During test, participants heard the adjectives spoken with a neutral ToV, while selecting referents from familiar and unfamiliar picture pairs. Participants were able to learn the adjectives' meanings, and, even in the absence of informative ToV, generalize them to new referents. A second experiment addressed whether ToV provides sufficient information to infer the adjectival meaning or needs to operate within a referential context providing information about the relevant semantic dimension. Participants who saw printed versions of the novel words during exposure performed at chance during test. ToV, in conjunction with the referential context, thus serves as a cue to word meaning. ToV establishes relations between labels and referents for listeners to exploit in word learning.     

Theological Strategies,Constructing Meaning,and Coping with Breast Cancer: A Qualitative Study

Examines ways in which the experience of breast cancer has impacted the theology and the ability to create meaning for 10 female breast cancer patients. Discusses three theological strategies emerging from participant interviews: 1) God causes cancer for a purpose, 2) God does not cause cancer, but there can still be meaning in illness, and 3) cancer is just part of life and has no inherent meaning, though meaning can be constructed through the experience.     

Where do "constraints" come from? A comparison between inferences in biology and in word learning

In this paper, as a commentary on the papers in this special issue, the nature of constraints is discussed in terms of the comparison between inferences in biology and in word learning. Young children's inferences in biology could be constrained by three sources of information: factual knowledge, expectations based on a theory, and ontological knowledge. For example, young children's inference about the length of noses could be constrained by the facts the children know about the animals, the similarity between the animals and humans, and the ontological distinction between living things and nonliving things. In the same way, young children might figure out word meanings by linguistic and pragmatic knowledge, expectations of word meanings (e.g., the whole-object assumption), and ontological knowledge. Interactions among these sources of knowledge are documented by the papers in this special issue and related studies. It is argued that learning biases such as the whole-object assumption could not be induced only by linguistic and pragmatic cues in a social context, but should be regarded as a product of the interaction between a social context and children's theories.     

Is Putnam's Causal Theory of Meaning Compatible with Internal Realism?

Putnam originally developed his causal theory of meaning in order to support scientific realism and reject the notion of incommensurability. Later he gave up this position and adopted instead what he called ‘internal realism’, but apparently without changing his mind on topics related to his former philosophy of language. The question must arise whether internal realism, which actually is a species of antirealism, is compatible with the causal theory of meaning. In giving an answer I begin with an analysis of the content and metaphysical background of scientific realism. I show that it presupposes metaphysical realism and that Putnam's philosophical conversion is due to his becoming aware of the latter's incoherence. After giving a brief sketch of internal realism I conclude by arguing that within this new theoretical framework the causal theory of meaning loses its force as a weapon against incommensurability. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.