Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia.
Am Psychol. 2014 Sep;69(6):561-74. doi: 10.1037/a0035049. Epub 2014 Feb 3.
The human experience of meaning in life is widely viewed as a cornerstone of well-being and a central human motivation. Self-reports of meaning in life relate to a host of important functional outcomes. Psychologists have portrayed meaning in life as simultaneously chronically lacking in human life as well as playing an important role in survival. Examining the growing literature on meaning in life, we address the question "How meaningful is life, in general?" We review possible answers from various psychological sources, some of which anticipate that meaning in life should be low and others that it should be high. Summaries of epidemiological data and research using two self-report measures of meaning in life suggest that life is pretty meaningful. Diverse samples rate themselves significantly above the midpoint on self-reports of meaning in life. We suggest that if meaning in life plays a role in adaptation, it must be commonplace, as our analysis suggests.
人生意义的体验被广泛认为是幸福感的基石和人类的主要动机之一。对人生意义的自我报告与许多重要的功能结果有关。心理学家将人生意义描绘为人类生活中普遍缺失的，同时也是生存的重要因素。在考察关于人生意义的不断增长的文献时，我们提出了“一般来说，生活有意义吗？”这个问题。我们从各种心理学来源中探讨了可能的答案，其中一些预测人生意义应该较低，而另一些则认为人生意义应该较高。对人生意义的流行病学数据和使用两种自我报告的人生意义衡量标准的研究进行总结表明，生活是非常有意义的。各种样本在自我报告的人生意义上的评分都显著高于中点。我们认为，如果人生意义在适应中发挥作用，那么它一定很常见，因为我们的分析表明了这一点。
