Poster Presentation 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

Discerning The Levels Of Meaningfulness Evaluation (#707)

Dylan R. Marsh 1 , Brian A. Canning 1 , Jessica L. Morse 1 , Michael F. Steger 1
  1. Colorado State University, Fort Collins, COLORADO, United States

Several prominent models of well-being position meaning as a key component (Diener et al., 2010; Ryff, 1989; Seligman, 2012). King, Hicks, Krull, and Del Gaiso (2006) suggest that “meaning in life is not simply a global judgment made about a life as a whole but potentially a quality of everyday existence” (p. 181). Accordingly, numerous scholars posit that evaluations of meaning may occur at multiple levels of subjective experience (e.g., Choi, Catapano, & Choi, 2017; Martela, Ryan, & Steger, 2018); yet, most research on meaning only focuses on global assessments of meaningfulness (e.g., Steger, Frazier, Oishi, & Kaler, 2006). Research on more granular levels of meaningfulness may be inhibited by the lack of a framework for conceptualizing meaningfulness across levels. In this paper, we propose four gradations of meaningfulness: global meaningfulness (i.e., the extent to which one's life is subjectively meaningful), domain meaningfulness (i.e., how much meaning is derived through any broad, continuous facet of life), situational episodic meaningfulness (i.e., the meaningfulness of a past event in consideration of one’s present context), and situational momentary meaningfulness (i.e. meaningfulness assigned to an experience while it is occurring). Justifications for this framework and its research implications are explored.