Over the last few decades, meaning in life has become a household name in psychological research. Searching for the term “meaning in life” in published abstracts on PsycINFO yields 1891 results, of which 1812 are papers published in the last 30 years. The construct of meaning in life is especially resonant with psychologists interested in well-being, as evidenced by many empirical papers describing associations between meaning and important markers of mental and physical health. In this issue, Sutin et al. (Reference Sutin, Luchetti, Stephan, Strickhouser and Terracciano2022) add to this body of literature by showing that verbal fluency and episodic memory are correlates of self-reported meaning and purpose. With an impressive sample, both in terms of its size and cultural diversity, the paper presents compelling evidence for these relationships. However, the important question about which of these correlates should be considered predictors as opposed to outcomes of meaning remains unresolved. Answering this question will help us understand how people experience meaningfulness and how meaning-based interventions could be developed to promote resilience, as well as mental and physical health outcomes.

Most meaning research is cross-sectional so decisions about which variables would act as antecedents—as opposed to outcomes—of meaning in life are frequently made on theoretical grounds. In other fields of research, theoretical inferences about direction of causality might be more intuitive, but, here, predicting direction of effect is not always easy. For instance, the positive relationship between education and purpose that is sometimes found in the literature (e.g. Hofer et al., Reference Hofer, Busch, Au, Poláčková Šolcová, Tavel and Tsien Wong2014) can be explained as: (a) a person’s education gives her the necessary tools to construct compelling life goals and the sense that she is able to achieve them, thus bolstering her sense of purpose or (b) a person who has a strong sense of purpose will go on to earn more educational qualifications. To further confound the debate, in rare cases where experimental evidence is available, some variables such as positive affect have been shown to act as both predictors and outcomes of meaning in different programs of research (e.g. King et al., Reference King, Hicks, Krull and Del Gaiso2006; van Agteren et al., Reference van Agteren, Bartholomaeus, Steains, Lo and Gerace2021), suggesting that some relationships could be bidirectional.

Effective empirical work has been slowed by unresolved tensions about how meaning in life should be defined and measured (see Leontiev, Reference Leontiev2013). Meaning has sometimes been construed as a feeling, reliant on intuitive information processing (e.g. Heintzelman and King, Reference Heintzelman and King2014), whereas other accounts have described meaning as involving “reflective, linguistic thinking” (Martela and Steger, Reference Martela and Steger2016, p. 7). However, recent, unifying theoretical frameworks have brought some definitional clarity; there is a growing consensus that coherence, purpose, and mattering are core components of a meaningful life (George and Park, Reference George and Park2016; Martela and Steger, Reference Martela and Steger2016). Purpose is conceptualized as a superordinate motivational component that organizes goals, whereas existential mattering is defined as an evaluative component that describes feelings that one’s life is of value and that it transcends the mundane confines of existence. In contrast, coherence has been described as the cognitive component of meaning that reflects one’s ability to make sense of one’s experiences.

The ability to detect reliable associations in the world and in oneself is often seen as a foundational aspect of meaning (Heintzelman et al., Reference Heintzelman, Trent and King2013; Heintzelman and King, Reference Heintzelman and King2014), but this relationship is not always reflected in empirical work. Some studies show a weak or inconsistent relationship between self-reported coherence (e.g. “I can make sense of the things that happen in my life”) and ratings of global meaning (e.g. “My life as a whole has meaning”) when controlling for purpose and mattering (Costin and Vignoles, Reference Costin and Vignoles2020). While it is unlikely that perceptions of coherence are independent of meaning—most self-report measures orient responders to focus their judgments on “life,” and this can be read as an implicit invitation to summate across experiences—some types of coherent accounts may be more effective at promoting meaningfulness than others. In the process of integrating self-relevant information, people would be motivated to select and assemble events and experiences in their memory based on other motives such as purpose and coherence. As such, a person who is driven by important life goals (purpose) and sees their life as inherently valuable (mattering) may interpret their experiences in accordance with those perceptions (coherence). Such a person may, in turn, see their life as more meaningful than someone who constructs a different coherent account of their life.

In trying to causally position verbal fluency and episodic memory in the constellation of variables associated with meaning, it is important to consider their relation to coherence. Verbal fluency tasks are often taken as indicators of verbal ability (e.g. vocabulary size) as well as executive control (e.g. being able to inhibit dominant responses; Shao et al., Reference Shao, Janse, Visser and Meyer2014), and both of these in conjunction with episodic memory may provide the basic conditions for developing coherent personal accounts (e.g. Reese et al., Reference Reese, Haden, Baker-Ward, Bauer, Fivush and Ornstein2011). These internalized stories are constructed by selecting and integrating moments stored in episodic memory to create meaningful self-defining narratives (McAdams, Reference McAdams2001). This process of integration often involves making sense of conflicting experiences and roles at a particular moment in time (“I don’t usually like watching sports, but I love going to tennis tournaments with my dad”) as well as across time (e.g. “I used to believe in God, but now I am an atheist”). Nevertheless, simply remembering and selecting key moments may not engender meaning on its own: people need to also be able to easily generate rich descriptions of these moments. Individuals who wrote about who they really are reported having more meaningful lives if they were able to provide more detailed accounts and if they found it easier to generate words related to their true self (Schlegel et al., Reference Schlegel, Hicks, King and Arndt2011).

Verbal fluency and episodic memory may also play a role in efforts to restore meaning when it is threatened. The meaning-making model (Park, Reference Park2010) suggests that people assign situational meaning to stressful life events by making evaluations about the causes and nature of those events. When the meaning assigned to an event is at odds with one’s core beliefs and values, this produces distress and triggers meaning-making processes in an attempt to resolve the discrepancy. These meaning-making attempts often involve elaborate reframing of situations such as attempting to positively reinterpret what has happened (e.g. George and Park, Reference George and Park2020). Evidence for the latter can also be found in narrative identity research. People report higher well-being when they tell the story of low points in their lives using redemption narratives (i.e. life aspects are described as changing from bad to good; Bauer et al., Reference Bauer, Graham, Lauber and Lynch2019).

So far, I have argued that verbal fluency and episodic memory could be predictors rather than outcomes of meaning. Sutin et al. (Reference Sutin, Luchetti, Stephan, Strickhouser and Terracciano2022) remark that more causally sensitive designs are needed to clarify the observed relationships. This is a necessary next step for developing effective interventions to promote mental and physical health. We need to understand in what contexts researchers and practitioners should focus efforts on directly increasing sense of meaning as opposed to promoting other aspects of positive human functioning that may also bolster meaning. The latter option may be more easily implemented as targeting meaning directly poses unique challenges. Meaning in life is a stable construct that shows relatively small fluctuations over time (Costin and Vignoles, Reference Costin and Vignoles2020). When attempting to observe these fluctuations, one must control for variables unrelated to the study design that may contaminate meaning measures. For instance, people base their meaning judgments on their emotional state when more relevant information is not accessible (e.g. Hicks and King, Reference Hicks and King2009). While there is some evidence of experimental manipulations influencing subjective ratings of meaningfulness (e.g. Heintzelman et al., Reference Heintzelman, Trent and King2013), these instances are uncommon and studies where meaning has been directly manipulated are even less common (for a recent attempt, see van Agteren et al., Reference van Agteren, Bartholomaeus, Steains, Lo and Gerace2021). More complications arise if one intends to distinctly manipulate each facet of meaning, given their documented overlap (Costin and Vignoles, Reference Costin and Vignoles2020).

Attempts to bolster meaning directly may be most suited to populations where people have experienced cognitive deficits due to aging or other causes. Previous research suggests that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between age and meaning (Aftab et al., Reference Aftab2019). Teenagers and young adults who are likely in the process of searching for meaning report lower meaningfulness. Then, meaning peaks in adulthood before it diminishes in old age, partly as a consequence of physical and cognitive decline. At this stage, interventions should be focused on guiding people to develop or re-discover a sense of meaning less dependent on cognitively demanding processes that involve effectively selecting and integrating autobiographical information. Instead, interventions could focus on increasing sense of mattering by making people feel valued, by creating opportunities to further guide younger generations (e.g. by teaching or imparting skills and life lessons), and by affirming the feeling that they are leaving a legacy (e.g. reminders of their life’s work or their family; see de St Aubin, Reference de St Aubin, Hicks and Routledge2013).

Developing effective interventions will depend on being able to recognize the nuances of the different meaning components and understand how they match the particular circumstances of the individuals supposed to benefit from them. Combined, these obstacles explain why efforts to clarify the direction of relationships between meaning—and its facets—and other important psychological variables are still ongoing. Nevertheless, given its long list of important correlates, research on meaning in life thrives despite its setbacks and so should efforts to clarify its complex causal relationships.