THE ROLE OF EXISTENTIAL MEANING AS A BUFFER AGAINST …people.tamu.edu/~David-Rosen/documents/The...

10.1177/0022167805283779Meaning and StressNathan Mascaro, David H. Rosen

THE ROLE OF EXISTENTIAL MEANINGAS A BUFFER AGAINST STRESS

NATHAN MASCARO is in the internship year ofTexas A&M’s doctoral program in clinical psychology.He was interning at Tulane University’s Health Sci-ences Center until Hurricane Katrina hit NewOrleans, and he currently interns at the Emory Uni-versity School of Medicine in Atlanta. His researchinterest is the assessment of existential personality

variables, the relationship of these variables to psychological well-being,and their role in psychotherapy.

DAVID H. ROSEN is McMillan Professor of Analyti-cal Psychology in Texas A&M University’s Psychol-ogy Department as well as professor of humanities inmedicine and professor of psychiatry and behavioralscience within the Texas A&M School of Medicine. Hehas a long-standing interest in spirituality and thehealing process and has written seven books includ-

ing Medicine as a Human Experience with David Reiser (1985), The Tao ofJung: The Way of Integrity (1997), Transforming Depression: Healing theSoul Through Creativity (3rd ed., 2002), and The Healing Spirit of Haikuwith Joel Weishaus (2004).

Summary

An ethnically diverse sample of 143 college undergraduates wasused to test the hypothesis that a sense of existential meaning buff-ers against the effect of stress on depression and hope. Spiritualmeaning as measured by the Spiritual Meaning Scale and personalmeaning as measured by the framework subscale from the LifeRegard Index-Revised were significantly negatively correlated withdepressive symptoms and positively correlated with hope. Spiritualmeaning, but not personal meaning, moderated the relationshipbetween stress and depression such that there was a strong relation-ship between depression and stress for individuals with low levels ofspiritual meaning but no relationship between stress and depression

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Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 46 No. 2, April 2006 168-190DOI: 10.1177/0022167805283779© 2006 Sage Publications

for individuals with high levels of spiritual meaning. It appears that,though both spiritual and personal meaning are inversely related todepression and positively related to hope, only spiritual meaningmoderates the relationship between daily stress and depression.

Keywords: meaning; stress; depression; hope; spirituality;existentialism

It is contrary to our nature, from the time we first gain the self-awareness and language use that connect our own inner worldwith the inner world of others, to do what we are asked withouthaving a good reason, without asking why. And also from this time,our behavior is ever more guided and motivated by the answers towhy questions that most satisfy us (i.e., our behavior is increas-ingly determined by the meanings we obtain for our lives). Yetwithin the field of mental health research, there is a limitedamount of thorough quantitative assessment of meaning (Debats,1999; Harris & Standard, 2001). This is despite our intuition that afull sense of meaning in life, or existential meaning, is vital for opti-mal functioning and despite the zeal with which people read andclaim to have been affected by Viktor Frankl’s (1959/1992) primarywork, Man’s Search for Meaning,1 in which he affirms Nietzsche’saphorism, “If we have our own why of life, we shall get along withalmost any how” (Nietzsche, 1888/1976, p. 468).

Progress in meaning research has been slowed by overrelianceon measures such as the Purpose In Life Test (PIL; Crumbaugh,1968; Crumbaugh & Maholick, 1964). The most popular measureof individual differences in existential meaning, the PIL is basedon a vague conceptualization of the construct (Yalom, 1980), has acomplex and inconsistent factor structure (Chamberlain & Zika,1988a; Dufton & Pearlman, 1986, cited in Pargament, 1999; Reker,2000; Reker & Cousins, 1979), and lacks discriminant validity byvirtue of its being confounded with variables such as life satisfac-tion (Yalom, 1980), social desirability (Braun & Domino,1978), anddepression (Dyck,1987). Some examples of PIL test items that con-fuse meaning with the hypothesized consequences of experiencingmeaning are “Facing my daily tasks is a source of pleasure and sat-isfaction”; “With regard to suicide, I have never given it a secondthought”; “My life is running over with exciting, good things”; “If Icould choose, I would like nine more lives just like this one”; “Life tome seems always exciting”; and “I am usually exuberant, enthusi-

Nathan Mascaro, David H. Rosen 169

astic.” Such confounded content vitiates PIL-based research sug-gesting that existential meaning is related to particular variablesof psychological health because the PIL is a measure of psychologi-cal health at least as much as it is a measure of existential meaning.

Despite its problematic history, there has arisen during the pasttwo decades a fair amount of quality research on the quantitativeassessment of existential meaning and its linkages with con-structs central to the field of mental health (see Debats, 1990,1996, 1998, 1999; Debats, Drost, & Hansen, 1995; Debats, Van DerLubbe, & Wezeman, 1993; see also Wong & Fry’s, 1998, handbookcovering contemporary research on meaning). Regarding its con-ceptualization, theorists converge in defining existential meaningas a person’s having a sense of coherence and purpose about her orhis life (Reker,2000;Yalom,1980). A life full of meaning will be per-vaded by intention such that a person feels satisfied about her orhis reasons for acting as she or he does (Klinger,1998).Rather thanviewing herself or himself as a victim of biological and social pres-sures or unconscious drives toward pleasure and power, she or hewill view her or his behavior and emotions largely as functions ofher or his framework for viewing life and the pursuit of her or hismost valued commitments (Frankl, 1959/1992; Maddi, 1967).

Regarding assessment of existential meaning, two related butunique subconstructs that are linked to psychometrically soundmeasurement devices have been identified. The first of theseinvolves personal meaning, the extent to which someone views heror his individual life as coherent and purposeful. The second hasbeen called spiritual meaning (Mascaro et al., 2004) and is definedas the extent to which someone views life itself as coherent andpurposeful and also derives personal meaning from a force that sheor he believes pervades, underlies, arches over, or transcends life.Two psychometrically sound assessment devices that measureindividual differences in reported levels of personal and spiritualmeaning have been constructed. These are, respectively, theframework subscale from the Life Regard Index (LRI; Battista &Almond, 1973) and the Spiritual Meaning Scale (SMS; Mascaroet al., 2004).

Evidence suggests that personal and spiritual meaning arerelated to enhanced psychological well-being. Personal meaning isthe most thoroughly investigated of the concepts. As measured byeither the original (Battista & Almond, 1973) or revised (Debats,1998) LRI framework subscale (LRI-R-framework), personal

170 Meaning and Stress

meaning has been found to be related, in the appropriately salubri-ous directions, to positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfac-tion (Chamberlain & Zika,1988b;Zika & Chamberlain, 1992); anx-iety and depression (Debats, 1990; Debats et al., 1993; Zika &Chamberlain, 1992); happiness (Debats, 1990, 1996; Debats et al.,1993; Scannell, Allen, & Burton, 2002); emotional dyscontrol andpsychological well-being (Zika & Chamberlain, 1992); elation(Debats, 1990); spiritual well-being (Harris & Standard, 2001;Scannell et al., 2002); hopelessness (Harris & Standard, 2001); andvarious symptoms of psychopathology (Debats et al., 1993). Asmeasured by the SMS,spiritual meaning appears related in appro-priately healthy directions to depression, anxiety, hope, and anti-social features (Mascaro et al., 2004). Furthermore, the SMS andLRI-R-framework were found to explain variance in hope anddepression beyond the variance explained by the Big Five person-ality variables of neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness,openness to experience, and extraversion (Mascaro et al., 2004).

Other sources converge with data from the SMS and LRI-R-framework to support the relevance of meaning to well-being. Sig-nificant percentages of individuals suffering from psychopathol-ogy appear to have problems revolving around meaninglessness(Yalom, 1980) or existential concerns (Addis, Traux, & Jacobson,1995), and it has been shown that undergraduates who canremember times when they have experienced their lives as mean-ingless are more likely to have required psychological counselingin the past than those who cannot recall times when they felt theirlives had no meaning (Debats et al., 1995). In addition, because theSMS is clearly related to the variable of spirituality, data regard-ing the importance of spirituality for optimal emotional function-ing support the relationship of spiritual meaning with mentalhealth. Spirituality can be defined as “recognition of a transcen-dent, meta-empirical dimension of reality” (Emmons, Cheung, &Tehrani,1998,p.405) or more simply as “feelings, thoughts, experi-ences, and behaviors that arise from a search for the sacred”(George, Larson, Koenig, & McCullough, 2000, p. 104). The rela-tionship between spiritually related constructs and mental healthis well documented (Bergin, 1983; Emmons et al., 1998; Gartner,Larson, & Allen 1991; George et al., 2000; Levin & Chatters, 1998;Pardini, Plante, Sherman, & Stump, 2000; Piedmont, 1999).

The studies summarized above provide evidence that existen-tial meaning has a broad relationship with psychological health: It


is consistently related to fewer symptoms of psychopathology andother such “negative variables” and to enhanced levels of positivevariables (e.g., elation, hope, spiritual well-being). However, thereis clearly a need for research with more diverse populations, formore longitudinal or prospective analyses, and for more precisetests of existential theory. Regarding the need for more precisetests of existential theory, it is notable that one of meaning’s pri-mary virtues has been theorized to be its ability to act as a bufferagainst stress, such that under high-stress conditions more so thanlow-stress conditions, a meaning-full attitude provides an individ-ual with resiliency against the loss of hope and against the devel-opment of anhedonia, depressive affect, and behavioral disengage-ment (Frankl, 1959/1992; Maddi, 1967). Such theory suggests thatan individual’s level of existential meaning should moderate theextent to which stress induces psychological distress, particularlysymptoms of depression and hopelessness.

Data and theory suggest that various forms of stress (e.g., majorlife events, interpersonal stress, daily hassles) are related toincreases in symptoms of psychopathology (Kanner, Coyne,Schaefer, & Lazarus, 1981; Kessler, Price, & Wortman, 1985;Myers, Lindenthal, & Pepper, 1975; Rabkin & Struening, 1976).Resiliency variables, or variables that moderate the influence ofstress on the development of symptoms of psychological distress,are therefore important to identify,and existential theory suggeststhat meaning is exactly this sort of variable. Surprisingly, therehas been little research using quality measurement devices test-ing existential meaning’s potential to act as a stress buffer. Conse-quently, in the current study, we investigated the extent to whichthe positive relationship between degree of daily stressors anddepression, as well as the inverse relationship between degree ofdaily stressors and hope, becomes weaker as individuals reporthigher degrees of personal and spiritual meaning. Our hypothesiswas that for individuals with higher-than-average levels of spiri-tual and personal meaning, there would be no relationshipbetween degree of daily stressors and symptoms of depression orlevels of hope. However, for individuals with lower-than-averagelevels of spiritual and personal meaning, we predicted that therewould be a positive relationship between degree of daily stressorsand depressive symptoms and a negative relationship betweendegree of daily stressors and levels of hope. Should results turn outas hypothesized, psychometrically sound evidence, consistent with


the notion that having high levels of meaning in life can bufferagainst some of the deleterious effects of daily stress,would exist.

METHOD

Participants

A total of 143 undergraduates enrolled in introductory psychol-ogy courses at a large state university located in the SouthernUnited States completed the self-report devices listed below inexchange for course credit. The sample was an ethnically diverseone, of which 25 (17.5%) individuals were Asian, 13 (9.1%) wereAfrican American, 49 (34.3%) were Hispanic, 1 (0.7%) was NativeAmerican, 49 (34.3%) were Caucasian, and 6 (4.2%) were of other,unidentified ethnicity. Also, 77 (53.8%) of the participants werefemales. The sample was rather young and homogeneous in termsof age, as the mean age was 18.69 years (SD = 0.95).

Materials

Personal meaning. The LRI-R-framework (Debats, 1998) wasused as a measure of personal meaning. Debats’s (1998) revisedversion of the LRI-R-framework is slightly altered from the origi-nal in that its items are in a different order, one word was deletedfrom three items, and items are rated on a scale ranging from 1 to 3rather than from 1 to 5. The LRI-R-framework is a 14-item, Likert-type, self-report scale assessing the extent to which an individualreports having a framework or philosophy for living. It includessuch positively worded items as, “I feel like I have found a reallysignificant meaning for leading my life,” and “I have a philosophyof life that really gives my living significance,“ and such negativelyworded items as, “I really don’t have much of a purpose for living,even for myself,” and “I really don’t believe in anything about mylife very deeply.” The overall LRI—which includes a fulfillmentscale in addition to the framework scale—has also been endorsedas a good personal meaning measure (Debats, 1998; Reker, 2000),but we believe that the framework subscale is the part of the LRIthat is least confounded by affective content. The fulfillmentsubscale’s large quantity of affective content can unrealisticallyinflate the actual relationship between personal meaning and


outcome variables, which tend to be saturated with affective con-tent (for expanded discussion of this issue, see Mascaro et al.,2004). The LRI-R-framework’s coefficient alpha in the currentstudy was .81.

Spiritual meaning. The SMS (Mascaro et al., 2004) was used asthe measure of spiritual meaning. The construct of spiritual mean-ing is defined as belief that life or another power of which life is afunction has a purpose, will, or way in which individuals partici-pate. The concept involves the perception that life itself has mean-ing that individuals can not only discover but in which they canparticipate in a way that results in a sense of calling or of feelingcalled on by life to pursue a particular purpose.The development ofthe SMS and its psychometric properties are described elsewhere(Mascaro et al., 2004). To the original 14-item version of the SMS,we added an item (“Something purposeful is at the heart of thisworld.”) that accorded with the essence of the spiritual meaningconstruct. Thus, the final version of the SMS is a 15-item, Likert-type, self-report inventory to which participants respond on a scaleranging from 1 to 5 (I totally disagree to I totally agree). In the cur-rent study, the SMS had a coefficient alpha of .91. To ensure thatthis updated version of the SMS retained its homogeneity andsingle-factor structure, we subjected the 15 items to a maximumlikelihood factor analysis,allowing a single factor to be extracted.

Depression. Participants’ depression levels were obtained usingthe depression scale from the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales(DASS-depression; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995a) and the BeckDepression Inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996). TheDASS is a 42-item, Likert-type, self-report inventory that dividesinto three scales that measure depression, generalized anxietysymptoms, and the more physiological symptoms of anxiety thatoften characterize panic attacks. The DASS has been shown tohave excellent reliability and validity and to compare favorably tothe Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories (Brown, Chorpita,Korotitsch, & Barlow, 1997; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995b). TheDASS-depression contains such items as, “I couldn’t seem to expe-rience any positive feelings at all,” and “I felt sad and depressed,”for which participants indicate the extent to which the statementhas characterized them, on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 to 3, dur-ing the past week. In the current study, item number 38, “I felt that


life was meaningless,” was deleted from all analyses because it isclearly confounded with the construct of meaning. Without thisitem, the DASS depression scale’s coefficient alpha in the currentstudy was .91. The BDI-II is a 21-item, self-report inventory mea-suring depressive symptomatology. For each item, the participantchooses one of four self-evaluative statements that range in sever-ity from 0 to 3 and that might have characterized her or him duringthe past 2 weeks. There is strong support for the validity and incre-mental utility of the BDI-II relative to the original BDI (Beck et al.,1996; Dozois, Dobson, & Ahnberg, 1998). It contains items rangingin severity, for instance, from “I do not feel sad” to “I am so sad orunhappy that I can’t stand it,” and from “I do not feel I am worth-less” to “I feel utterly worthless.” In the current study, the BDI-IIhad a coefficient alpha of .88.

Hope. Participants’ levels of hope were assessed using Snyder’sAdult State Hope Scale (ASHS; Snyder et al., 1996) and the HerthHope Scale (HHS; Herth, 1991). The ASHS has demonstrated goodconstruct validity (Lopez,Ciarlelli, Coffman,Stone,& Wyatz,2000;Snyder et al., 1996). It consists of two factors: one called agency,pertaining to an individual’s perceived will to ends or goals, andanother termed pathways, pertaining to the person’s awareness ofmeans or pathways to those ends or goals. The scale contains sixitems to which participants respond on an 8-point, Likert-typescale ranging from 1 to 8. It includes such items as, “If I should findmyself in a jam, I could think of many ways out of it,” and “At thepresent time, I am energetically pursuing my goals.” In the currentstudy, its coefficient alpha was .78. Herth’s (1991) measure of hope,which has also exhibited good reliability and construct validity(Arnau, Rosen, Finch, & Rhudy, 2002; Herth, 1991), taps a broaderconstruct than Snyder’s instrument, containing a hopelessnesscomponent containing such items as, “I feel overwhelmed andtrapped,” and “I feel scared about my future,” a component similarto that of agency containing such items as “I have goals for the next3-6 weeks,” and “I am committed to finding my way,” and an addi-tional component tapping a slightly spiritual optimism and per-ceived social support, containing such items as, “I can seek andreceive help,” and “I believe that good is always possible.” The mea-sure has 30 items, each rated on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 to 3.For all analyses, item number 24, “I know my life has meaning andpurpose,” was deleted because it is confounded with the construct


of meaning. Not including this item, the HHS’s coefficient alpha inthe current study was .87.

Stress. To assess the degree of minor stresses or daily hasslesfaced by each participant within the past 24 hours, we adminis-tered the Daily Stress Inventory (DSI; Brantley et al., 1987), whichis a checklist of 58 unpleasant events, each of which participantscan endorse and rate on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (occurredbut was not stressful) to 7 (caused me to panic). Of the various waysof computing DSI scores, the SUM score, which is computed bytotaling the ratings for each participant, appears to have the high-est correlation with other stress measures (Brantley et al., 1987).This was the score used in the current investigation. The DSI SUMscore has good reliability and validity (Brantley et al., 1987), indi-viduals’ SUM scores are significantly lower on weekends than onweekdays (Brantley, Cocke, Jones, & Goreczny, 1988), and theirscores are associated significantly with physiological indicators ofstress such as increased levels of cortisol and vanillylmandelic acidlevels (Brantley, Dietz, McKnight, Jones, & Tulley, 1988).

Procedure

During two consecutive semesters, the aforementioned partici-pants were recruited to complete the measures noted above. Indi-viduals completed these measures in groups no larger than 40 atvarious times throughout the two semesters. All participants gavetheir informed consent before participation and were given coursecredit in return for volunteering to participate.

RESULTS

Statistical Analyses

To determine the general relationships among personal andspiritual meaning, depression, hope, and stress, Pearson correla-tion analysis was employed. Because of the number of simulta-neous correlations involved, a significance level of p = .01, asopposed to the standard .05, was adopted. As mentioned earlier,our hypothesis was that meaning would moderate relationshipsamong stress, depression, and hope such that individuals experi-


encing high levels of meaning would demonstrate a weaker posi-tive relationship between stress and depression and a weaker neg-ative relationship between stress and hope than would individualsexperiencing low levels of meaning. Hierarchical regression analy-sis was used to test this prediction. Eight regression analyses wereperformed in total, four for personal meaning predicting each ofthe outcome measures and four for spiritual meaning predictingeach of the outcome measures. For each analysis, DSI scores wereentered in Step 1 predicting BDI, DASS-depression, HHS, orASHS scores. In Step 2 of each regression, we added scores for therespective meaning variable, and in Step 3, we added the scoresreflecting the interaction between the respective meaning variableand DSI scores (i.e., meaning scores multiplied by DSI scores). Weobserved whether or not adding the interaction term significantlyimproved the amount of variance explained in the respective out-come variable and whether or not the beta weight for this interac-tion term was in the hypothesized direction (i.e., negative whenpredicting BDI-II and DASS-depression scores and positive whenpredicting HHS and ASHS scores).

Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics are listed in Table 1.2 Means and standarddeviations for all measures were comparable to those from otherstudies that utilized nonclinical populations.

Factor Analysis of the SMS

Factor loadings for a maximum likelihood analysis of the 15SMS items, with 1 factor extracted, are displayed in Table 2. As canbe seen, all items loaded adequately on the extracted factor, whichaccounted of 42.8% of the variance in item responses. The one fac-tor solution to the data resulted in a chi-square value of 182.8 (p <.001).Although this value was statistically significant,when it wasdivided by the degrees of freedom (i.e., 90) for the analysis, it wasbelow the threshold of 2.5 suggested by Kline (1998) for indicatingadequate fit between actual data and a hypothesized model. In thecurrent sample, therefore, the SMS items appeared to reflect a sin-gle construct, with item content suggesting this construct involvesbelief in a transcendent force from which one derives as sense ofcalling or purpose.


Correlations Among Meaning,Hope, Depression, and Stress

Pearson correlations between all variables are listed in Table 3.Both meaning measures were significantly positively related toboth hope measures and significantly negatively related to bothdepression measures. The LRI-R-framework, which measures per-sonal meaning, had larger correlations with both depression mea-sures and one of the two hope measures than did the SMS, whichmeasures spiritual meaning. It is notable that neither the mean-ing measures nor the hope measures were significantly correlatedwith the DSI, the stress measure. This suggests that meaning andhope may best be conceptualized as personality variables that areless reactive to stress than is depression. This is consistent withour contention that meaning can remain stable in the context of


TABLE 1: Maximum Likelihood Factor Loadings for Spiritual MeaningScale (SMS) Items on the Single Extracted Factor

Item Factor Loading

1. There is no particular reason why I exist.(–) .782. We are each meant to make our own special contribution

to the world. .633. I was meant to actualize my potentials. .664. Life is inherently meaningful. .655. I will never have a spiritual bond with anyone.(–) .506. When I look deep within my heart, I see a life I am compelled

to pursue. .487. My life is meaningful. .688. In performing certain tasks, I can feel something higher or

transcendent working through me. .629. Our flawed and often horrific behavior indicates that there is

little or no meaning inherent in our existence.(–) .6210. I find meaning even in my mistakes and sins. .6911. I see a special purpose for myself in this world. .8412. There are certain activities, jobs, or services to which I feel

called. .5013. There is no reason or meaning underlying human existence.(–) .6114. Something purposeful is at the heart of this world. .7315. We are all participating in something larger and greater than

any of us. .70

NOTE: N = 143. When administering the SMS, items are listed in the order they ap-pear in Table 1. Participants are asked to respond to the items on a 5-point scalewhere 1 = I totally disagree, 2 = I partially disagree, 3 = I’m in between, 4 = I partiallyagree, and 5 = I totally agree.

changes in stress and is therefore capable of serving as a resiliencyfactor or in other words a buffer against stress. An implication ofthe lack of a significant relationship between hope and stressmeans that it is more important for meaning to buffer the effect ofstress on depression than to buffer stress’ effect on hope.Neverthe-less, the possibility still exists that individuals with low levels ofmeaning are increasingly vulnerable to reduced levels of hope inthe context of high stress levels.

Analyses of the Meaning By Stress Interaction

Summarized in Tables 4 and 5, respectively, are the hierarchicalregression analyses testing the ability of a spiritual meaning-by-stress interaction and a personal meaning-by-stress interaction topredict variance in hope and depression in addition to the variancethat meaning and stress explain additively. The results suggestthat the positive relationship between the DSI (stress) and depres-sion, as measured by both depression measures, indeed becomessignificantly less positive as individuals’ SMS levels increase. Toillustrate this trend, changes in the relationship between DSIscores and BDI-II scores as a function of different SMS levels aredepicted in Figure 1. Although the LRI-R-framework did not havea significant interaction effect (see Table 5), it did exhibit a trend,similar to that of the SMS, which approached significance (incre-mental F ratio = 3.62, p = .06 for the BDI-II and 3.25, p = .07 forDASS-depression). With respect to hope, neither the SMS nor theLRI-R-framework exhibited significant stress interaction effects,although the SMS interacted with stress in predicting the ASHS toan extent that approached significance (incremental F ratio = 3.36,


TABLE 2: Descriptive Statistics for All Measures

LRI-R- DASS-framework SMS depression BDI-II HHS ASHS DSI

M 33.61 63.33 6.80 10.20 67.80 36.32 59.43SD 5.47 11.03 7.50 7.50 12.09 6.26 40.64

NOTE: N = 143. One item was removed from the DASS-depression scale and theHHS because these items were confounded with meaning. LRI-R-framework =framework subscale from the revised Life Regard Index; SMS = Spiritual MeaningScale; DASS-depression = depression scale from the Depression, Anxiety, StressScales; BDI-II = Beck Depression Inventory-II; HHS = Herth Hope Scale; ASHS =Adult State Hope Scale; DSI = Daily Stress Inventory.

p = .07). Therefore, the hypothesis that meaning acts as a stressbuffer with regard to depression was partially supported in thatspiritual meaning interacted with stress in predicting depressionscores. However, virtually no support was found for meaning’sability to moderate the stress-hope relationship.

DISCUSSION

Meaning’s Relationship With Hope and Depression

Spiritual meaning. A preliminary statement regarding thenewly constructed SMS is warranted. Previous research (Mascaroet al., 2004) supports the construct validity of the 14-item versionof the SMS, but the latest version of the SMS contains an addi-tional item. In the current study, a maximum likelihood factoranalysis of these 15 items indicated that,as hypothesized, the SMSitems reflect a single factor. Based on the SMS’s overt content, thissingle factor involves a sense of spiritual meaning, or belief in atranscendent force from which an individual derives a sense ofpurpose or calling.The 14-item SMS’s convergence with other indi-cators of meaning, and its independence from confounding vari-ables such as social desirability, also support the scale’s constructvalidity (Mascaro et al., 2004).


TABLE 3: Zero-Order Correlations Among Meaning, Hope, Depression,and Stress

LRI-R- DASS-Framework SMS depression BDI-II HHS ASHS

DSI –.17 –.03 .34** .31** –.12 –.21ASHS .59** .36** –.53** –.54** .58**HHS .54** .57** –.54** –.47**BDI-II –.45** –.28* .81**DASS-depression –.45** –.32**SMS .45**

NOTE: N = 143. LRI-R-framework = framework subscale from the revised Life Re-gard Index; SMS = Spiritual Meaning Scale; DASS-depression = depression scalefrom the Depression,Anxiety,Stress Scales; BDI-II = Beck Depression Inventory-II;HHS = Herth Hope Scale; ASHS = Adult State Hope Scale; DSI = Daily Stress In-ventory.*p < .005. **p < .001.

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Two pieces of evidence support the hypothesis that spiritualmeaning acts as a buffer against the effects of stress on well-being.The first indication is that the SMS did not in the current samplehave a significant relationship with the DSI, that is, spiritualmeaning was not related to stress and is therefore not likely tochange with changes in stress. The second piece of data lendingsupport to the notion that spiritual meaning is a resiliency factor isthat as individuals’ levels of spiritual meaning increased, the posi-tive relationship between daily stress and depression weakened—to the point of nonexistence for those with spiritual meaning scoresat least one standard deviation above the mean. This was the casefor two different depression measures, both of which were nega-tively correlated with spiritual meaning levels.Therefore, the vari-able of spiritual meaning has a direct, negative relationship with


0

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Daily Stress Inventory Scores

BD

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Sco

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Spiritual Meaning Score = 52 (1 SD below mean)

Spiritual Meaning Score = 63 (mean)

Spiritual Meaning Score = 74 (1 SD above mean)

Figure 1 Interaction Between Spiritual Meaning and Daily Stress Pre-dicting Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) Scores

depression but may also play a role in moderating the negativeeffect of stress on depressive symptoms.

In contrast to the findings with depression, spiritual meaningdid not significantly moderate the relationship between stress andhope. Besides this, the importance of buffering the effect of stresson hope was reduced because of the fact that no significant zero-order relationships were found between the stress measure andthe measures of hope.

Personal meaning. Like spiritual meaning, personal meaningwas unrelated to stress, was related positively to hope, and wasrelated negatively to depression. However, the hypothesis that ithas a stress-interaction effect on hope or depression did not findsupport. It is important to remember, though, that the lack of a sig-nificant stress interaction does not imply a lack of importance forpersonal meaning but simply that its relationships with hope anddepression are not manifested in interaction with stress. Note, forexample, that personal meaning appears to predict more variancein both depression measures and one hope measure than does spir-itual meaning.

In sum, results of the current study suggest that both personalmeaning (having a sense of coherence and purpose about one’sindividual life irrespective of the status of life itself or other meta-physical or spiritual considerations) and spiritual meaning (hav-ing a sense of purpose or calling derived from beliefs about a spiri-tual force underlying or arching over life) are related positively tohope and negatively to depression within a nonclinical, ethnicallydiverse, college-age population. Such findings are consistent withresearch cited in the introduction. Second and also consistent withprevious research, stress was found to be positively related to depres-sion. Our final two findings add unique information to the litera-ture and lend partial support to existential psychological theory.The first is that both personal meaning and spiritual meaning areunrelated to daily stress, consistent with the idea that a sense ofmeaning is a relatively robust personality feature that is not reac-tive to stress. Lastly, our most interesting finding is that spiritualmeaning’s relationship with depression was manifested directlyand in interaction with stress, whereas personal meaning’s wasonly manifested directly with depression and not in interactionwith stress. Part of the explanation for such an outcome might bethat beliefs characteristic of spiritual meaning, by connecting the


individual with concepts that often transcend immediate, self-focused concerns, have increased benefit for health outcomes dur-ing aversive situations that are beyond one’s own control.However,a sense of personal meaning (which for various individuals mightnot involve anything related to spirituality) remains consistentlyimportant no matter how stressful a situation is. That is, as long asone can maintain a particular personal meaning in the face ofwhatever reality might be facing one, such meaning will be linkedto decreased depression and increased hope. It would seem impor-tant, to the end of maximizing well-being and the robustness ofthat well-being, to have a well-developed sense of personal mean-ing that is grounded in something spiritual, something that tran-scends immediate, self-focused concerns.

Study Limitations

The current study was not ideal in the respect that it involvedclinical variables that were not explored within a clinical popula-tion. Similar studies as this one should therefore be conductedwithin clinical populations. Furthermore, a larger sample size,particularly one with similar ethnic diversity, would be desirableso that the interactions of meaning with cultural variables mightbe explored. Meaning could be more or less relevant to mentalhealth within different cultures or across genders. It also needs tobe noted that only one form of stress, that of daily hassles, wasassessed in the current study, and meaning’s interaction withother forms of stress, such as traumatic life events, ought to beinvestigated. But the most limiting aspect of the present investiga-tion is that it is cross-sectional as opposed to longitudinal.Although the presence of a stress-interaction effect for spiritualmeaning on depression levels lends some support to the notionthat spiritual meaning can causally influence the variable ofdepression, only a study tracking these variables across time canindicate whether or not changes in meaning precede, follow, or co-occur with changes in depression. There is a scarcity of longitudi-nal research on meaning, with the LRI-R-framework being theonly of the measures used in the present study that has had longi-tudinal data published. These data indicated that psychotherapypatients’ LRI-R-framework levels at pretreatment predictedposttreatment happiness and symptom levels, controlling for ini-tial happiness and symptom levels (Debats, 1996). In addition, the


LRI-R-framework and Wong’s (1998a) Personal Meaning Profilehave been shown to predict students’ depression and hope levels(both state and trait) 2 months later, controlling for baselinedepression and hope levels and for social desirability and the BigFive personality factors (Mascaro & Rosen, in press). Such resultsare consistent with the notion that some forms of meaning havecausal influence on unique aspects of depression and hope.

Study Implications

Results of the present research suggest that it might be fruitfulto analyze the extent to which meaning-focused psychotherapy,such as Yalom’s (1980) or Maddi’s (1998) existential psychothera-pies or Wong’s (1997, 1998b) meaning-centered cognitive therapy,affect mental health through their effects on variables such as per-sonal or spiritual meaning. (This is of course not to say that moremainstream forms of behavioral, cognitive, or dynamic therapyhave any less effect on meaning or are any less deserving of studyin this regard.) Also, seeing as how meaning appears consistentlyrelated to emotional health,expanding research into factors influenc-ing meaning is warranted. And as was shown in the current study,wisdom can be gleaned from considering the heterogeneity of themeaning construct and exploring the differential effects of differentforms of meaning on well-being. For instance, qualitative researchmight be employed to uncover what it is about spiritual meaningthat allows it to function as a stress buffer and what it is about per-sonal meaning that gives it an apparently greater zero-order rela-tionship with depressive symptoms than spiritual meaning. Suchresearch might also suggest the extent to which the variable ofspiritual meaning is operative in programs such as AlcoholicsAnonymous that value the recovering individual’s relationshipwith a higher power.

Broadening the vision slightly, as evidence supporting mean-ing’s role in the nurturance of emotional health within universitypopulations accumulates, the more important it is to consider plac-ing greater emphasis on the study of philosophy, art, world reli-gions, and other humanistic topics that are tied intimately to theconstruct of meaning. There is no lack of technological know-howin the Western world and among our youth, but there does appearto be diminished understanding of the reasons why we choose tolive the way we live and of the ultimate aims that supposedly guide


our daily lives. As efficiency increasingly becomes for society anend in itself, it is necessary to think seriously about the level of ful-fillment such an end really supplies, particularly as it compares tothe aims of which individuals become aware as a result of studyingthe humanities. Whether in a therapeutic, educational, or othercontext, addressing the subject of meaning in life can induce thesort of ultimate questioning that might alter an individual’s (andone hopes a society’s) momentum toward a chronically mechanized,achromatic, and unfulfilling future.

NOTES

1. Viktor Frankl’s 1946 From Death Camp to Existentialism was theoriginal German version of the more well known, Man’s Search for Mean-ing, published in 1959. In this work, Frankl described the human quest formeaning and outlined a clinically oriented existential psychology, relatingtenets from his theory of existential meaning to his own and others’ sur-vival of the Nazi concentration camps.

2. Men and women scored comparably on all measures except for theSpiritual Meaning Scale, for which women appeared to score higher (t =3.48, p < .005). Because this was the only measure on which women andmen scored unequally, there was not a need to control for gender in the in-ferential analyses. Moreover, all analyses turned out comparably whencontrolling and not controlling for gender.

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