For centuries people have wondered about the meaning of life. Scholars and common people have looked at this colossal question and have imagined the possibilities. An assortment of perspectives exists about what brings meaning to human life. Metz (2001) attempted to view the literature on this vast subject and cataloged various viewpoints into two overarching categories: the Supernaturalist perspective, and the Naturalist perspective. These umbrella perspectives refine and process some of the unconnected notions that exist in the fields of philosophy, primarily, but also in the field of psychology, about the meaning of life. Metzs framework was used in this study as a means to analyze and understand some of the varied perspectives. From his outline, this study was born. The purpose of this study was to understand what undergraduate students believe to be the meaning of life for them. Philosophical and psychological scholars suppose that certain factors in human beings lives bring them meaning and fulfillment. This study surveyed students' responses to these suppositions. In the survey students indicated which aspects of their lives brought them meaning, using a Likert-type scale. A survey was constructed by this researcher, using themes from the literature about meaning of life issues. The presented survey was used to uncover how people would rate the existing themes when confronted with them in a self evaluation. One hundred thirty two undergraduate students from the College of Education, at the University of Saskatchewan were surveyed, in October of 2002. Three Educational Psychology 258.3 classes were used in this research. The study found that the participating men and women tended to think similarly about most survey items that were related to their meaning in life. Three hypotheses were examined in this study. The first hypothesis was that the overall ranking given to the meaning of life statements in the survey will differ by gender was supported. Although some similarities did exist, rank order differed between males and females. Hypothesis two was that males and females will differ in their responses on each of the relevant statements relating to the meaning of life. This hypothesis was supported to an extent as well. However, only ten of the forty questions were demonstrated to show statistically significant differences in males/female responses. Hypothesis three was that males and females will differ in their responses to items on the Supernaturalist and Naturalist conceptions of a meaningful life. This was not supported to a great extent. Both males and females tended to rank Naturalist statements higher than they did Supernaturalist statements. The results of the survey indicated that the responding students found relationships to be of primary importance to them. For this sample of students, relationships with friends, family and a significant or intimate partner appeared to be the factors that contributed most to having meaningful lives.

For centuries people have wondered about the meaning of life. Scholars and common people have looked at this colossal question and have imagined the possibilities. An assortment of perspectives exists about what brings meaning to human life. Metz (2001) attempted to view the literature on this vast subject and cataloged various viewpoints into two overarching categories: the Supernaturalist perspective, and the Naturalist perspective. These umbrella perspectives refine and process some of the unconnected notions that exist in the fields of philosophy, primarily, but also in the field of psychology, about the meaning of life. Metzs framework was used in this study as a means to analyze and understand some of the varied perspectives. From his outline, this study was born. The purpose of this study was to understand what undergraduate students believe to be the meaning of life for them. Philosophical and psychological scholars suppose that certain factors in human beings lives bring them meaning and fulfillment. This study surveyed students' responses to these suppositions. In the survey students indicated which aspects of their lives brought them meaning, using a Likert-type scale. A survey was constructed by this researcher, using themes from the literature about meaning of life issues. The presented survey was used to uncover how people would rate the existing themes when confronted with them in a self evaluation. One hundred thirty two undergraduate students from the College of Education, at the University of Saskatchewan were surveyed, in October of 2002. Three Educational Psychology 258.3 classes were used in this research. The study found that the participating men and women tended to think similarly about most survey items that were related to their meaning in life. Three hypotheses were examined in this study. The first hypothesis was that the overall ranking given to the meaning of life statements in the survey will differ by gender was supported. Although some similarities did exist, rank order differed between males and females. Hypothesis two was that males and females will differ in their responses on each of the relevant statements relating to the meaning of life. This hypothesis was supported to an extent as well. However, only ten of the forty questions were demonstrated to show statistically significant differences in males/female responses. Hypothesis three was that males and females will differ in their responses to items on the Supernaturalist and Naturalist conceptions of a meaningful life. This was not supported to a great extent. Both males and females tended to rank Naturalist statements higher than they did Supernaturalist statements. The results of the survey indicated that the responding students found relationships to be of primary importance to them. For this sample of students, relationships with friends, family and a significant or intimate partner appeared to be the factors that contributed most to having meaningful lives.

This thesis aims to analyze the similarity of the change in Nietzsches and Wittgensteins approaches to the meaning of life. The main argument is that their approach to the meaning of life changed from a metaphysical perspective to an anti-metaphysical one. Nietzsche gave a metaphysical interpretation of the meaning of life in the Birth of Tragedy. In this book Nietzsche conceived of Ancient Greek culture as the ideal culture since it was the product of the union of the two artistic deities: Apollo and Dionysus. This Primordial Unity (Ur-Eine), for Nietzsche, was the metaphysical essence of the world and the meaning of life was to be found in this unity. Nietzsche, later, with his new preface to the Birth of Tragedy called An Attempt at a Self-Criticism and Human All Too Human, criticized his earlier metaphysical approach to the meaning of life and shifted to an anti-metaphysical perspective. Wittgenstein had a similar shift in his thought. The Tractatus was written to explore the nature of reality and the world, and explain the relationship between the world and language. The Tractatus gave a metaphysical explanation of the nature of reality by dividing it into two levels, the world the lower and the mystical the higher. Logic, ethics, aesthetics and religion are the mystical which is the scaffolding of the world. Language, on this view, can only state the worldtotality of facts and cannot state what is higher. Ethics is about the meaning of life thus the meaning of life is higher and cannot be attained within the limits of this world. Later Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations argued against this metaphysical interpretation of the meaning of life. From an anti-metaphysical point of view, Wittgenstein argued that the meaning of life can be found within the limits of this world.

This thesis aims to analyze the similarity of the change in Nietzsches and Wittgensteins approaches to the meaning of life. The main argument is that their approach to the meaning of life changed from a metaphysical perspective to an anti-metaphysical one. Nietzsche gave a metaphysical interpretation of the meaning of life in the Birth of Tragedy. In this book Nietzsche conceived of Ancient Greek culture as the ideal culture since it was the product of the union of the two artistic deities: Apollo and Dionysus. This Primordial Unity (Ur-Eine), for Nietzsche, was the metaphysical essence of the world and the meaning of life was to be found in this unity. Nietzsche, later, with his new preface to the Birth of Tragedy called An Attempt at a Self-Criticism and Human All Too Human, criticized his earlier metaphysical approach to the meaning of life and shifted to an anti-metaphysical perspective. Wittgenstein had a similar shift in his thought. The Tractatus was written to explore the nature of reality and the world, and explain the relationship between the world and language. The Tractatus gave a metaphysical explanation of the nature of reality by dividing it into two levels, the world the lower and the mystical the higher. Logic, ethics, aesthetics and religion are the mystical which is the scaffolding of the world. Language, on this view, can only state the worldtotality of facts and cannot state what is higher. Ethics is about the meaning of life thus the meaning of life is higher and cannot be attained within the limits of this world. Later Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations argued against this metaphysical interpretation of the meaning of life. From an anti-metaphysical point of view, Wittgenstein argued that the meaning of life can be found within the limits of this world.

The existential psychology’s concern with the feeling of meaningfulness in life forms the basis for the present study aiming to investigate the relationship between perceived meaningfulness, and search for meaningfulness in life, and level of conformity.  An online survey was distributed to employees at a university in Sweden, and included two questionnaires; the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ) and the Concern for Appropriateness (CFA) questionnaire. One hundred and two respondents completed the survey. CFA was found to significantly correlate with MLQ-Presence (r = -.456 p = <.001) and MLQ-Search (r = .307 p = .002). The present study found that the feeling of present meaningfulness was significantly lower among those who cared more about fitting into others´ norms concerning how to behave.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

In this essay, I intend to analyze and respond to criticism directed towards the subjective component of Susan Wolf’s Bi-partite “Fitting Fulfillment View”, criticism directed from Thaddeus Metz, Ben Bramble, and Aaron Smuts. Wolf offers a theory about meaning in life which considers both that the subject should find it meaningful and that the source of this meaningfulness should be objectively valuable. However, critics have argued that a subject’s attitude towards meaningfulness should not affect whether one’s life is meaningful or not. Out of the critics I found promising and responded to I did not find any that seriously threatened Wolf’s theory and, in some cases they even seem to misunderstand Wolf’s claim. In the final section, I raise a question for Wolf’s account that I believe would be interesting to pursue in a further study.

This focus of the current study is the role of meaning in life with respect to career decision and anxiety. It was hypothesized that: (1) There is a negative correlation between career decidedness and anxiety; (2) Meaning in life mediates the relationship between career decidedness and state anxiety; and (3) The relationship between career decidedness and state anxiety will be moderated by the search for meaning in life. Participants consisted of undergraduate students at a large Midwestern university. Measures include: the Career Decision Scale (CDS; Osipow et al., 1976), the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ; Steger et al., 2006), and the State-Trait Inventory for Cognitive and Somatic Anxiety (STICSA; Ree et al., 2000). The results indicate that the presence of meaning in life mediates the relationships between career decidedness and anxiety. However, the results did not support the hypothesis that the search for meaning in life moderates the relationship between career decidedness and anxiety. Future research and practical implications are also discussed.

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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / While research links the presence of meaning in life to better psychological well-being, the relationship between the search for meaning and psychological well-being is less clear. The search for meaning is generally thought to be psychologically distressing, but there is evidence that this process is moderated by the presence of meaning in life. Because the search for meaning in life can be considered a goal pursuit, goal-related personality traits may also moderate the relationship between the search for meaning and psychological well-being. The first aim of this cross-sectional study was to replicate the moderating effect of the presence of meaning on the relationship between the search for meaning and psychological well-being in a sample of undergraduates (N = 246). The second aim was to examine the potential moderating effects of hope and optimism on these relationships. As an exploratory third aim, this study examined whether there was a unique combination of the presence of meaning, the search for meaning, and hope or optimism that differentially predicted psychological well-being. Results suggest that optimism and the presence of meaning, but not hope, are significant moderators of the relationship between the search for meaning and psychological well-being. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.