CHAPTER 7
Alexis N. Wilkinson and Laura A. King
Abstract
This chapter addresses the likely contributions of art and literature to meaning in life. First, the authors define meaning in life, describe its general features, and consider its place in human flourishing. They consider variables (particularly positive mood) that predict meaning in life and link these factors with the arts and humanities. Then, they consider the place of regularities and routines in meaning in life and place such experiences within the arts and humanities. They then consider the feeling of existential mattering as it relates to participation in culture. Finally, they draw an analogy between difficult times and difficult works of art and literature, and explore the ways that effortful meaning-making might contribute to the Good Life.
Key Words: meaning in life, art, literature, eudaimonia, positive affect
The concept of meaning so pervades the human conversation about art, literature, poetry, film, podcasts, TV shows, and so forth that it hardly seems necessary to suggest that the experience of meaning is intertwined with encounters with these media. After slogging through a difficult text or watching a profound but baffling film, it is not at all unusual to sit with friends and pose the question, “What does it all mean?” Certainly “meaning” is a multifaceted concept that captures a host of associations, from authorial intent, to resonance to the self, to deep interpretation, and on and on (Leontiev, 2007). Reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved or experiencing a production of Hamlet are likely to be meaningful events to the person who comes to these open and ready to be affected. Within philosophy, scholars and students might grapple with the meaning of life, seeking to find an objective answer to one of life’s Ultimate Questions.
Searching for the underlying Meaning (with a capital M) of works of art, literature, drama, film, music, and dance, etc., or of life itself, can be a profitable way to engage with these topics. We can learn to understand difficult texts or troubling poems—rendering these works meaningful to us. We can learn to look at and see challenging art in ways that allow us to experience meaning even in the obtuse. There is little question that these pursuits lend meaning to our lives in important ways. Here, however, we do not really broach these ways of connecting with the arts and humanities (or life itself) to extract meaning. Instead, this chapter is occupied with a different sort of meaning—not the meaning of life, but meaning in life as an aspect of psychological well-being. Here, we offer an overview of empirical research on this topic, noting especially the kinds of findings that offer lessons for an emerging Positive Humanities.
Here, we focus on the human experience of meaning in life and the likely contributions of experiences with works of art and literature to this important aspect of well-being. We begin by clarifying some aspects of the science of meaning in life, defining meaning in life, describing its general features, and considering its place in the pantheon of human flourishing. Then, we consider variables that predict the experience of meaning in life and seek to link these factors with the arts and humanities. We place special emphasis on the experience of pleasure because the role of positive feelings in meaning in life challenges many assumptions about the psychology of the “Good Life” (and the place of happiness in that life). In turn, it also calls us to think about potential challenges in understanding the role of the arts and humanities in human flourishing, potentially challenging assumptions about these as well. Next we consider the place of regularities and routines in the experience of meaning in life and, again, seek to draw links to experiences with the arts and humanities. We then turn to a central feature of the experience of meaning in life, the feeling of existential mattering, and link this feature to the ways we participate in culture and cultural narratives and recognize ourselves (or not) in works of art and literature. Finally, we draw an analogy between difficult times and difficult works of art and literature, and explore the ways that effortful meaning-making might contribute to the Good Life.
The Experience of Meaning in Life
To begin, it may be helpful to review (and dispel) a few concerns about the scientific study of the experience of meaning in life. People who are not immersed in the research literature on well-being (i.e., most people), often come to the topic of meaning in life with key questions, “How can a scientist possibly study meaning in life? Isn’t it an ineffable mystery?” Indeed, it would be impossible to study a topic that cannot be defined. Imperfect but tentatively sufficient definitions have emerged, as we note in the following.
In addition, people may think of a meaningful life as one characterized by profound achievement or significance. Within psychology, meaning is studied not as some objective good that might spring from a life of great accomplishment. Rather, like other psychological variables, we study meaning in life as a subjective experience. As is the case with happiness, unhappiness, anger, or love, we assume that the person living a life is the best arbiter of its felt meaningfulness. This choice may represent the best way to think about meaning in life. Consider the following wisdom offered by Klinger (1977, p. 10):
The meaningfulness of someone’s life cannot be inferred just from knowing his or her objective circumstances. Meaningfulness is something very subjective, a pervasive quality of a person’s inner life. It is experienced both as ideas and as emotions. It is clear, then, that when we ask about the meaningfulness of someone’s life we are asking about the qualities of his or her inner experience.
A final aspect of meaning that warrants note in this context is the fact that meaning in life is not always a constructed experience. Although in literary scholarship, a person might undertake a hermeneutical search for underlying meanings of symbols or signs, the experience of meaning may be present in the absence of such a search. There are times when something—a poem, a novel, a painting, a sculpture—fills a person with a sense of meaning, but they cannot explain how or why. We typically refer to such inexplicable meaning as a product of intuition. Such intuitive experiences may be more related to the experience of meaning in life than other, more reflective or deliberative experiences (Heintzelman & King, 2013, 2016). Standing in front of a painting, a museum-goer may find themselves awestruck without knowing why or how. At times such as these, a person may be dumbfounded if asked to explain why the piece is so compelling. Yet, the presence of meaning is no doubt felt. Later in this chapter we will return to the effortful process of meaning-making. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that meaning may be present in the absence of active, effortful construction—that some experiences can simply offer a feeling of meaning without effort (Hicks, Cicero, Trent, Burton, & King, 2010; King & Hicks, 2009).
Defining Meaning in Life
Progress in the science of the experience of meaning in life suffered, for many years, from the absence of a consensual conceptual definition of the construct. Numerous such definitions have been proposed. Reviewing these, King and colleagues offered the following summary, “Lives may be experienced as meaningful when they are felt to have a significance beyond the trivial or momentary, to have purpose, or to have a coherence that transcends chaos” (King, Hicks, Krull, & Del Gaiso, 2006, p. 180). This definition represents the current scholarly consensus that the experience of meaning in life includes at least three components: significance, purpose, and coherence (Costin & Vignoles, 2020; George & Park, 2016; King & Hicks, 2021; Martela & Steger, 2016). Significance entails the degree to which a person believes his or her life has value, worth, and importance. Purpose refers to having goals and direction in life. Coherence, characterized by some modicum of predictability and comprehensibility, allows life to make sense to the person living it (Baumeister & Vohs, 2002). Through this facet, we might say that when a person has the experience of “getting it”—of understanding an event or experience—they have experienced meaning (Hicks et al., 2010).
Measuring Meaning in Life
In keeping with the psychological focus on the subjective experience of meaning, meaning in life is often assessed by asking people to rate (e.g., on a scale from 1, not at all, to 7, very much) how meaningful their lives are. Research uses items such as “In life, I have very clear goals and aims,” and “My personal existence is very purposeful and meaningful,” to assess the experience of meaning in life (Steger et al., 2006). More recently, assessments have been developed that tap the three facets of meaning (Costin & Vignoles, 2020; George & Park, 2016). These measures include items targeting the experiences of significance, purpose, and coherence separately, allowing for a more nuanced sense of how specific experiences contribute to a global or general sense of meaning in life (Costin & Vignoles, 2020; Womick et al., 2019).
Although the notion of measuring the grand or profound experience of meaning in life using simple, face-valid items and ratings scales may seem heretical to some, there is no question that those who rate their lives as meaningful are better off than those who rate their lives as less meaningful in a host of ways, ranging from psychological adjustment, to physical health, to occupational success (Heintzelman & King, 2014a; King & Hicks, 2021). The experience of meaning in life is rightly considered a cornerstone of human functioning.
How meaningful is life, on average?
With the development and implementation of reliable and valid measures of meaning in life, research on the topic has accrued apace. It has become possible to ask about the general features of this experience. Importantly, although often portrayed as a rare accomplishment (Seligman, 2011), meaning in life appears to be a relatively commonplace experience. Many people rate their lives as pretty meaningful (i.e., above the midpoint on a 1–7 scale; Heintzelman & King, 2014a). Some Western philosophers and existential psychologists assume that human existence is inherently meaningless (e.g., Yalom, 1980), but most people do not experience life as lacking in meaning. A review of research studies in which participants completed well-validated measures of meaning in life showed that individuals in a host of circumstances (women with breast cancer, people in treatment for addiction or serious psychological disorders, those who have been hospitalized for life-threatening illnesses) report meaning in life, on average, above the midpoint of the scale (Heintzelman & King, 2014a). Interestingly, this review uncovered just one (rather small) sample who reported their meaning in life to be below (or just at) the midpoint of the scale. That sample was a group of undergraduates.
This conclusion from empirical studies of the experience of meaning in life sits alongside results from large representative samples in which people have rated their experience of meaning in life. These studies typically show a high level of meaning in life. For example, Oishi and Diener (2014) reported the results of a worldwide representative survey conducted in 132 nations. Respondents were asked a “yes or no” question: “Do you feel your life has a special purpose or meaning?” The results showed that, at the level of nation, the percentage of people answering yes was quite high, 91 percent (Oishi & Diener, 2014). Other representative samples have shown similar results (see Heintzelman & King, 2014a for a review).
Finding that most lives are experienced as pretty meaningful supports the idea that the experience of meaning may have adaptive value. Similar to the way in which scholars have argued for the potential adaptive value of positive mood (which is also commonplace) (Diener et al., 2015), we might consider that the experience of meaning has a role in adaptation (Baumeister & von Hippel, 2020). The “meaning as information” approach (Heintzelman & King, 2014b) argues that feelings of meaningfulness provide information about the extent to which the experiences make sense or are characterized by reliable pattern. Research showing that such feelings do track the presence of pattern in stimuli (Heintzelman, Trent, & King, 2012) support the idea that subjective feelings of meaning provide people with information about whether the world makes sense. The commonplace nature of meaning in life tells us that very often it does.
If life is generally pretty meaningful, why is it that people often subjectively feel that they are longing for meaning? The experience of meaning has long been recognized as a central human motivation (Frankl, 1984 [1946]). Yet, the urge toward meaning, urgent though it may be, sits alongside a reality of the presence of meaning in life, a commonplace experience (King, 2012). This seeming paradox can be understood by placing the motivation for meaning in the context of other adaptive motivations: We do not lose the urge to eat, drink, or connect with other people simply because we have food, water, and loved ones. Rather, adaptive experiences are by definition commonplace (they must be, or a species could not survive; Halusic & King, 2013). Like other adaptive experiences, the experience of meaning in life is common and yet a continued subject of longing.
This urge toward meaning, no doubt, is commonly (if even unintentionally) employed by storytellers to engage listeners and readers. This longing has been famously toyed with by authors in literary works that tempt the reader to find meaning in signs and symbols. For instance, in his short story “Signs and Symbols,” Nabokov dares the reader to find meaning in a slew of dismal potential omens, leaving us to wonder if a ringing phone is just a wrong number or a psychiatric hospital calling to inform an elderly couple that their son (a patient in the hospital) has died by suicide. Similarly, the novel Moby Dick is filled with moments that challenge the reader to choose a world of reality (without attached meaning, the whale as animal) or a world of subjective meaning (Ahab’s view of the whale). As Melville’s narrator, Ishmael, finds himself floating on Queequeg’s coffin, the reader faces the tantalizing urge to attach symbolic meaning, or to exist in a reality emptied of such associations.
Given its commonplace nature, it makes sense that meaning in life is linked to common experiences—experiences that are widely available to us as human beings. Indeed, research has revealed that meaning may spring from unexpectedly mundane places. Understanding the variables that foster a sense of meaning in life allows us to see with greater clarity how experiences with the arts and humanities might enhance this experience, as we now consider.
What Makes Life Feel Meaningful?
In this section, we describe research that links potentially mundane experiences with the experience of meaning in life. We review the literature on positive mood, regularities and routine, and finally the experience of mattering to others as important antecedents of meaning in life. For each, we address the potential implications for the ways that experiences in art and literature might enhance the experience of meaning in life.
Positive Mood and Meaning in Life
Perhaps one of the most surprising (yet robust) findings in the literature is that one of the strongest predictors of experiencing life as meaningful is being in a pretty good mood (e.g., King et al., 2006; Tov & Lee, 2016). Meaning in life and positive mood share a strong, positive relationship. This relationship is not explained by other experiences that are correlates of positive mood (e.g., religious faith, Hicks & King, 2008; social relationships, Hicks & King, 2009; Hicks, Schlegel, & King, 2010; global focus or seeing “the Big Picture,” Hicks & King, 2007). In one study, participants rated their daily experience of meaning in life each day over the course of five days. The results showed that the strongest predictor of a day being rated as meaningful was not the amount of goal-directed activity, but rather the number of positive feelings that had occurred that day (King et al., Study 2, 2006).
Importantly, the association between positive mood and meaning in life is not simply correlational. That is, it might seem not surprising at all that people who experience life (or a day) as meaningful are also more likely to report themselves as happy (or cheerful, joyous, or feeling enjoyment, etc.). What is likely to be surprising is that happiness (that is, just being in a pretty good mood) shares a causal relationship with the experience of meaning in life. Inducing positive mood is a relatively simple experimental manipulation. Psychologists who study emotion routinely “put” people in a good mood by having them listen to happy music, write about happy experiences, look at happy pictures, watch funny video clips, or giving them unexpected treats. Research has shown that such positive mood inductions lead reliably to higher reports of meaning in life (e.g., Hicks, Trent, Davis, & King, 2012; King et al., 2006). Interestingly, these results do not reflect simply the “mindless” reports of college student participants. Rather, the association between a positive mood and meaning in life appears to be stronger with age (Chu, Fung, & Chu, 2020; Hicks, Trent, Davis, & King, 2012). Although the vaunted experience of meaning has often been portrayed by psychologists as apart from the simple pleasures of life (Ryff, 1989; Ryff & Singer, 2008; Seligman, 2011; Waterman, 1993), this research shows that with age (and wisdom?), the experience of positive mood becomes ever more definitive of the experience of meaning in life.1
The causal relationship between simple pleasure and meaning in life suggests one important pathway through which encounters with literature and art can promote a sense of meaning in life. It may be an eternal frustration of English professors throughout history that students come to literature thinking about whether or not they “like” it. Yet, the experience of enjoyment may be an important way that literature and art contribute to the sense that life is meaningful. When a poem brings us joy, that poem is conferring a sense that life matters, has purpose, and makes sense. It is a life worth living. This likely truth suggests an important lesson for an emerging Positive Humanities, a lesson that is still being fully processed in the field of well-being.
Approaches to well-being have often been bifurcated into two camps, hedonic and eudaimonic well-being (e.g., Kashdan, Biswas-Diener, & King, 2008; cf., Ward & King, 2016). Hedonic well-being refers to how a person feels—the balance of positive and negative mood they experience—as well as the person’s evaluation of his or her satisfaction with life (Kahneman, Diener, & Schwarz, 1999). On this view, a happy person is a happy person, no matter where that happiness comes from.
In contrast, the eudaimonic approach to well-being contends that the experiences from which happiness emerges are of great importance in determining whether that happiness is of the right kind (Waterman, 1993; Waterman & Schwartz, 2013). Drawing on Aristotle’s definition of happiness (eudaimonia), these scholars view eudaimonic well-being (or happiness) as that kind of happiness that emerges from actualizing one’s potential, using one’s talents, expressing oneself authentically, or engaging in morally virtuous action (Ryff & Singer, 2008; Ward & King, 2016a). Importantly, positive mood and meaning in life are emblematic of these different forms of well-being: positive mood is definitive of hedonic well-being, and meaning in life is considered a feature of the more erudite experience of eudaimonic well-being.
Clearly, research showing that induced positive mood leads to higher meaning in life challenges the notion that these two experiences are qualitatively different. This blurring of the lines between the mundane experience of mood and the rather more rarefied experience of meaning in life bears an important lesson for the Positive Humanities. There is a tension between the ideas that scholars may bring to the idea of the Good Life and the many, many good lives that are being lived every day. For whatever reason, scholars of the Good Life have often portrayed it as an elite experience reserved for those with the motivation and intellectual ability to seek it out (Ward & King, 2016a), as if human flourishing is an acquired taste. The denigration of enjoyment as an appropriate criteria by which art, music, or literature might be judged belies the likely value of this experience in the “higher” experience of meaning in life.
Literature, poetry, art, drama, dance, and music that inspire pleasure may be vital components of a meaningful (if potentially low brow) life (Ward & King, 2016a). Importantly, even eudaimonic researchers have shown that watching a favorite TV show can contribute to the satisfaction of organismic needs (Adachi, Ryan, Frye, McClurg, & Rigby, 2018). Activities that may seem superficial—the easily inspiring poem or the directly applicable story—might well serve the higher motivations toward the Good Life. Scholars of Positive Humanities are well served to note William James’s (1950 [1890], p. 125) assertion, “All Goods are disguised in the vulgarity of their concomitants in this workaday world. But Woe to him who can only recognize them when he thinks them in their pure and abstract form.” There may be meaning lurking in the quotidian aspects of life.
Of course, happiness or being in a good mood is not the only experience that fosters a sense of meaning in life, but research has shown that when other (perhaps more putatively “meaningful”) sources of the experience of meaning in life (e.g., social relationships, religious faith) are lacking, positive mood can serve a compensatory function. As an example, happy people who are lonely experience meaning in life on par with those who have many social connections (Hicks, Schlegel, & King, 2010).
Figure 7.1 shows a schematic of the compensatory results described in the preceding paragraph. As can be seen, typically research has shown that those high in more stable sources of meaning (such as social relationships or religious faith) report high levels of meaning in life regardless of their mood. However, among those low on those sources of meaning (shown in the dashed line in the figure), positive mood can provide a boost of meaning in life. This pattern has been demonstrated with a host of predictors of meaning in life, ranging from religious faith (Hicks & King, 2008) to financial status (Ward & King, 2016b). Individuals whose life circumstances are lacking in important ways may nevertheless experience high levels of meaning in life as a function of positive mood. Thus, even watching a sitcom, or reading a popular novel or a poem (that horrifyingly rhymes), that momentarily boosts positive mood may allow the person to experience meaning in life.
It is worth noting, too, that those mood inductions described here reveal a simple truth: pleasure is a relatively easy experience to come by. That easy experience may be an important outcome of experiences with the arts and humanities, and our capacity to enjoy is a link to the experience of meaning in life. This simple pathway from pleasures to the experience of meaning is recognized in literature itself. The main character of Sartre’s Nausea, for example, experiences a respite from his existential longing when he hears “Some of These Days” playing in a bar. Similarly, Ellen Glasgow’s heroine in Barren Ground, though buffeted by innumerable negative experiences, recognizes a central truth, “where beauty exists the understanding soul can never remain desolate” (Glasgow, 1985 [1925], p. 510). In literature, sometimes, simple pleasure may be sufficient to quell the longing for meaning. The inspirational aspects of nature (and art, music, and literature) can serve to make life worth living, often through the experience of joy.
Figure 7.1. Positive mood compensates for low levels of other sources of meaning in life.
Regularities, Routines, and Ease of Processing
The coherence aspect of meaning in life suggests that when life makes sense, it is likely to be felt as meaningful. This idea led to research on the ways that exposure to stimuli that “make sense” might influence the experience of meaning in life. A series of studies showed that exposure to objective coherence (vs. incoherence) led to reports of higher meaning in life (Heintzelman, Trent, & King, 2012). More recently, research has extended this idea to living out of regularities in habit and routine. This work showed that self-reports of routinization (measured with items like, “I do pretty much the same things every day”) were positively correlated with meaning in life, an association that was not affected by controlling for religiosity (certainly a source of routine in many people lives) or mindfulness (the very opposite of routinization; Heintzelman & King, 2019). In addition, in an experience sampling study, participants were likely to indicate higher momentary meaning in life when their behavior at that moment represented their everyday routine (Heintzelman & King, 2019).
These results have implications for the ways that the arts and humanities may support a sense of meaning in life. Consider the familiarity of plots or feelings unfolding on repeated experiences with books, poems, works of art, and so forth. Such experiences may be quiet sources of meaning in life—attained via the enactment and completion of a known whole. Well-loved genres, with all of their conventions and tropes, may be watering holes of meaning for people who engage with them. The familiar regularity of forms used in literature may also spur a sense of meaning in life. Surely, the routine of iambic pentameter is part of the whole that leads us to experience meaning in Shakespeare.
Moving to an even lower level of abstraction, research has examined the link between ease of processing and the experience of meaning in life. Stimuli that are easy to process are understood without difficulty—they readily make sense. When texts are processed easily, they are more likely to be experienced as “right” or true (Alter & Oppenheimer, 2009; Schwarz, Song, & Xu, 2009). A simple example of the effects of ease of processing is the “rhyme and reason” effect. This effect refers to the fact that rhyming statements (or aphorisms) are more likely to be viewed as true compared to statements that make the same point do not rhyme (e.g., “What sobriety conceals, alcohol reveals” vs. “What sobriety conceals, alcohol unmasks”; McGlone & Tofighbakhsh, 2000). Rhyming texts (that are easily processed) are more likely to be experienced as true. Such results certainly have implications for poets everywhere.
Can something as subtle as ease of processing infuse life with meaning? One study tested this possibility (Trent, Lavelock, & King, 2013). Participants completed a scale measuring meaning in life printed in a hard-to-read (vs. easy-to-read) font. The hard-to-read font included characters in a random array of font styles and sizes. Results showed that meaning in life was rated as lower when the scale was presented in a hard-to-read font. Thus, such subtle experiences of processing ease may foster a sense of the “rightness” of the world, the feeling of meaning (Hicks et al., 2010).
The idea that texts that are easily processed are likely to feel meaningful suggests, again, the value of repeated readings of the same text, not only for what is newly discovered in beloved works, but in the completion of something known. When texts or works of art become an overlearned and ritualized part of life, they are likely to imbue life with meaning.
Mattering
Research incorporating measures of the three facets of meaning in life points to a potentially provocative conclusion: it may be that meaning is (mostly) about mattering. Significance refers to the degree to which people find their lives to have importance and value, and often in ways that transcend the day-to-day. “Existential mattering” is measured with items such as, “Even considering how big the universe is, I can say that my life matters” (Costin & Vignoles, 2020). Such scales are thought to track the ways in which feeling that one is contributing to the world, leaving a mark, or legacy, can bolster the feeling that life is meaningful. Some research supports the idea that mattering is the most consistent predictor of meaning in life, compared to the other facets of purpose and coherence (Costin & Vignoles, 2020; Womick et al., 2019). When people perceive that their existence matters to others, they feel their lives are meaningful (Stillman, et al., 2009). Importantly, like positive mood and routine, social connections are the rule, not the exception, in human life (Leary & Cox, 2008). Most people do matter to the people around them.
Existential mattering is not only about having deeply satisfying social relationships. A key way in which human beings experience their lives as significant—as mattering, perhaps even after death—is through investment in culture (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991; Vess, 2013). To the extent that art and literature are emblematic of culture, engaging with these media is investing in culture, suggesting that art and literature that allow us to recognize common aspects of human experience may be expected to enhance meaning in life. Identifying with characters and their strivings can allow a person to feel a sense of vicarious belonging and a sense that their own life story enacts a shared narrative (Breen et al., 2016).
One aspect of existential mattering is the sense that one has made a mark on others, enough to be remembered. Surely being forgotten can be a common, mundane experience. Having met someone, say, only once for a few minutes, it might not seem surprising that the person might have forgotten us. One study examined whether the experience of being forgotten in this very mundane way might have impact on meaning in life. In the study, participants simply came to the lab for a brief assessment and then returned two days later. The student experimenter was the same on both occasions, and for some participants she said, “Were you here on Tuesday? I don’t remember you.” Participants who were given this bit of information reported lower meaning in life than those in comparison groups (King & Geise, 2011, Study 1). The effect of being forgotten on meaning in life has been replicated and extended in other studies showing that having a place in another person’s social memory is a sign of importance, of mattering (Ray et al., 2019).
When a person finds their experience reflected in art and literature, the person may feel powerfully attached to culture that will outlive the self. However, regarding the potential role of such works in the experience of mattering, we might ask these questions: Who is remembered/noticed/and represented in art, literature, poetry, etc.? Who might feel that they are being forgotten? Considering these questions compels us to consider the importance of representation and the capacity for readers and viewers to recognize themselves in works of art and literature and the creators of these—to know that they and their experience are, indeed, noticed (Breen et al., 2016).
Surely, human beings may identify with very different others and experience a oneness with humanity. At the same time, considering the previously noted effects of ease of processing on the experience of meaning in life, it seems likely that ready connections and identifications may be optimal for enhancing a sense of mattering. Importantly, positive representations of group identities in art and literature can be vital to the positive experience of personal identity (Filipovic, 2018; Smith-D’Arezzo & Musgrove, 2011).
Of course, not all meaning in life emerges from “easy” or even positive experiences, such as the pleasure of a Dave Brubeck number or a morning cup of coffee. People often seek out experiences in art and literature that are difficult, complex, and challenging—potentially leading to emotions beyond pleasure (Mares, Bartsch, & Bonus 2016). How can we place meaning in life in the context of more difficult, challenging experiences? We examine this question next.
Meaning from Chaos
Very often poetry, fiction, art, and music not only support and promote a sense of meaning in life but challenge our assumptions about the things we think are meaningful—what it is that makes us significant, gives our lives purpose, or how things make sense. What are the implications of such challenging experiences for our sense of meaning in life? One way to answer this question is to consider the role of challenging experiences in personality development.
Block (1982) used the Piagetian concepts of assimilation and accommodation as a way to understand the role of difficult experience in adult personality development. In assimilation, the person is able to integrate new or challenging experiences into existing ways of thinking about the world (i.e., schemas). In accommodation, new or challenging experiences require a central change in these existing ways of making sense. Accommodation involves the revision of old ways of understanding and interacting with the world and development of new ways to exist—in a word, meaning-making. Accommodation can occur for both negative and positive experiences. Instances of profound experiences such as awe can foster accommodative processing.
Researchers have used personal narratives of life experiences to understand the implications of assimilation and accommodation (i.e., meaning-making) for well-being and maturity. In this research, people have been asked to write (or tell) narratives that “tell the story” of their experience. These stories have then been content analyzed to identify narrative features that correlate with well-being (including meaning in life) and other aspects of personality development (e.g., Weststrate et al., 2018).
One type of content analysis has focused on specific features of the narratives that are associated with high levels of coherence, such as foreshadowing, happy endings, and a high level of closure. To get a sense for the analogy between these personal stories and literary works, consider an example of foreshadowing, found in a study of parents who wrote stories of finding out they would be parenting a child with Down syndrome (King et al., 2000, p. 519):
At our baby shower, we opened a box with a child care book. My husband opened it at random and started reading aloud. I looked at him in horror as we both realized he was reading about Down syndrome.
Narrative features indicating a highly coherent story are most likely to be related to psychological well-being and self-reported meaning in life (King et al., 2000; Lilgendahl, Helson, & John, 2013).
However, not all life experiences end happily. Indeed, stories that lack trouble—the drama of accommodation—are unlikely to be “good stories.” Are there outcomes beyond subjective feelings of happiness and meaning that might be of value in such cases? Here we might consider outcomes such as wisdom or psychological maturity. For example, ego development refers to the complexity with which a person experiences the self and world (Hy & Loevinger, 1996). Interestingly, research has shown that personal narratives featuring a high level of exploration, searching, and accommodation are associated with higher levels of ego development, concurrently and prospectively (King & Hicks, 2007). This means that individuals who describe their life experiences as involving important identity-challenges and a need to rewrite their perspectives on what makes life worth living are more likely to show increases in ego development over time. It is important to bear in mind that ego development—this construct that taps into the complexity and insight a person brings to experience—is not related to well-being. Thus, this newfound way of looking at the world does not necessarily mean sacrificing happiness (nor does it mean necessarily gaining happiness).
Can we consider difficult times to be analogous to difficult works of art and literature? In the context of art and literature, “difficult” has multiple meanings. It may indicate hard to understand or comprehend. It can indicate content that is challenging because it includes descriptions of traumatic events or content that calls into question one’s preconceived notions about life and the world. Can grappling with these various forms of difficulty potentially lead to gains, if not in happiness and meaning in life, then in insight or maturity? Some evidence suggests the answer to these questions is yes. First, some studies have shown that encounters with existentially challenging texts and works of art automatically spur a search for pattern (Proulx & Heine, 2009; Proulx, Heine, & Vohs, 2010). Perhaps the mind searching for connection can “make sense,” even when the world is not offering it readily. In addition, research supports the idea that activities that nudge a person to take varying perspectives and to consider a variety of ways to think about a problem can enhance the experience of wisdom (Law & Staudinger, 2016). If we draw a link between difficult experiences and difficult works of art and literature, we can see that grappling with these might not lead to happiness or subjective meaning in life, but they may lead to insight and wisdom and may allow a person to experience happiness and meaning in life of a different, perhaps more complex kind (King & Hicks, 2007).
Closing Thoughts
Before ending this chapter, we wish to offer one last lesson for the Positive Humanities. An unfortunate characteristic of positive psychology is the tendency to view the valued goods of life as rarities that must be earned. A movement meant to illuminate the strengths that characterize human life has, to its detriment, too often set the goods of life on pedestals and suggested that only by living a certain way, reading a certain book, or attending a certain workshop can one attain them. And nowhere is this unfortunate impulse clearer than in the way positive psychologists talk about the meaningful life. The meaningful life is not a rarity, and it is not separate from the mundane aspects of our existence. It emerges in and through common experiences, including our experiences with works of art and literature.
We hope to instill in those interested in the Positive Humanities the conviction that good things in life need not be rare to be valuable. Sometimes even the highest and most precious human experiences can be found in the mundane, the workaday. The need for meaning should not blind us to the fact that human lives are pretty meaningful already. Art and literature may challenge us and may challenge even this simple statement. But even these challenging experiences are part and parcel of the good lives that are available to humans. We invite the reader to consider the poetry of Mary Oliver. The popularity of her poems (popular poems!) to everyday people has never been in doubt. But the scholarly world never fully embraced these inspiring works that transformed the everyday into the sacred (Syme, 2019). In her poem, Wild Geese, Oliver beautifully summarizes the truth about good, meaningful lives:
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
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1The relationship between being in a pretty good mood and the experience of meaning in life is not mirrored in the link between negative mood and meaning in life. Although negative mood may be negatively correlated with the experience of meaning in life (King et al., 2006), multivariate analyses show that negative feelings are not as strongly related to the experience of meaning as positive feelings (Tov & Lee, 2016). In addition, negative mood inductions do not lead to lower meaning in life (compared to neutral mood; King et al., 2006).