The Experience of Meaning in Life: Classical Perspectives, Emerging Themes, and Controversies

Front Matter....Pages i-xii
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
The Four Needs for Meaning, the Value Gap, and How (and Whether) Society Can Fill the Void....Pages 3-15
A Terror Management Perspective on the Creation and Defense of Meaning....Pages 17-30
I Die, Therefore I Am: The Pursuit of Meaning in the Light of Death....Pages 31-45
Meaning Maintenance Model: Introducing Soren to Existential Social Psychology....Pages 47-59
Trauma and Meaning Making: Converging Conceptualizations and Emerging Evidence....Pages 61-76
Subjective Well-Being and Meaning in Life in a Hostile World: Proposing a Configurative Perspective....Pages 77-86
The Origins of Meaning: Objective Reality, the Unconscious Mind, and Awareness....Pages 87-99
Front Matter....Pages 101-101
Destiny Is in the Details: Action Identification in the Construction and Destruction of Meaning....Pages 103-115
Emotions and Meaning in Life: A Motivational Perspective....Pages 117-128
Meaning and the Horizon of Interpretation: How Goals Structure Our Experience of the World....Pages 129-139
The Meaning of Hope and Vice Versa: Goal-Directed Thinking and the Construction of a Meaningful Life....Pages 141-150
Any Second Could Be the Second: How Thinking About What Might Have Been Affects the Emergence of Meaning and Commitment Across the Adult Life Span....Pages 151-162
Judgments of Meaning in Life Following an Existential Crisis....Pages 163-174
Front Matter....Pages 175-175
Examining the True Self as a Wellspring of Meaning....Pages 177-188
Finding Meaning in the Mirror: The Existential Pursuits of Narcissists....Pages 189-200
“But Wait, It Gets Even Weirder…”: The Meaning of Stories....Pages 201-212
Nostalgia Bolsters Perceptions of a Meaningful Self in a Meaningful World....Pages 213-226
Hardiness as the Existential Courage to Grow Through Searching for Meaning....Pages 227-239
Generativity and the Meaning of Life....Pages 241-255
Unique Contributions of Religion to Meaning....Pages 257-269
Front Matter....Pages 175-175
Death, the Need for Unambiguous Knowledge, and the Construction and Maintenance of Multi-level Meaning....Pages 271-283
Front Matter....Pages 285-285
Attachment Orientations and Meaning in Life....Pages 287-304
The Bidirectional Relationship of Meaning and Belonging....Pages 305-315
Culture: The Grand Web of Meaning....Pages 317-331
Is Happiness a Moving Target? The Relationship Between Residential Mobility and Meaning in Life....Pages 333-345
Front Matter....Pages 347-347
Multilayered Meanings in Health Decision Making: A Terror Management Health Model Analysis....Pages 349-362
Cultivating Meaningfulness at Work....Pages 363-377
A Meaning-Based Intervention for Addiction: Using Narrative Therapy and Mindfulness to Treat Alcohol Abuse....Pages 379-391
Life, Drugs, and the Making of Meaning....Pages 393-403
Meaning in Life as the Aim of Psychotherapy: A Hypothesis....Pages 405-417