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Some Key Differences Between a Happy Life and a Meaningful Life Roy F This article was downloaded by: [Roy F. Baumeister] On: 22 August 2013, At: 13:17 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK The Journal of Positive Psychology: Dedicated to furthering research and promoting good practice Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpos20 Some key differences between a happy life and a meaningful life Roy F. Baumeistera, Kathleen D. Vohsb, Jennifer L. Aakerc & Emily N. Garbinskyc a Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4301, USA; b Department of Marketing, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA; c Department of Marketing, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA Published online: 20 Aug 2013. To cite this article: The Journal of Positive Psychology (2013): Some key differences between a happy life and a meaningful life, The Journal of Positive Psychology: Dedicated to furthering research and promoting good practice, DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2013.830764 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2013.830764 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2013.830764 Some key differences between a happy life and a meaningful life Roy F. Baumeistera*, Kathleen D. Vohsb, Jennifer L. Aakerc and Emily N. Garbinskyc aDepartment of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4301, USA; bDepartment of Marketing, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA; cDepartment of Marketing, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA (Received 3 June 2012; accepted 24 July 2013) Being happy and finding life meaningful overlap, but there are important differences. A large survey revealed multiple differing predictors of happiness (controlling for meaning) and meaningfulness (controlling for happiness). Satisfying one’s needs and wants increased happiness but was largely irrelevant to meaningfulness. Happiness was largely present oriented, whereas meaningfulness involves integrating past, present, and future. For example, thinking about future and past was associated with high meaningfulness but low happiness. Happiness was linked to being a taker rather than a giver, whereas meaningfulness went with being a giver rather than a taker. Higher levels of worry, stress, and anxiety were linked to higher meaningfulness but lower happiness. Concerns with personal identity and expressing the self contributed to meaning but not happiness. We offer brief composite sketches of the unhappy but meaningful life and of the happy but meaningless life. Keywords: meaning; happiness; self; relationships; satisfaction with life The wishes for happiness and for a meaningful life are having one’s needs and desires satisfied, including being two of the most widely held goals by which people mea- largely free from unpleasant events. Meaningfulness may sure and motivate themselves. A breathtakingly broad be considerably more complex than happiness, because it variety of other common goals and strivings – as exam- requires interpretive construction of circumstances across ples, the desires to be healthy, to be loved, to succeed at time according to abstract values and other culturally work, to raise children, and to serve one’s religion or mediated ideas. We shall report results of an empirical country – can be subsumed under either or both of those investigation on differential correlates of meaningfulness broad wishes. The present article addresses the relation- and happiness. ship between the two. Although undoubtedly happiness and a meaningful life have substantial overlap, our focus fi is on the differences. More precisely, we shall develop De nitions theory and provide data about what factors differentially Happiness is generally defined as subjective well-being, predict happiness and meaningfulness. which is to say, an experiential state that contains a glob- Positive psychology took off in the 1990s as a ally positive affective tone. It may be narrowly or corrective to psychology’s heavy emphasis on illness, broadly focused: A person may be happy to have found Downloaded by [Roy F. Baumeister] at 13:17 22 August 2013 suffering, and misfortune. It sought to enrich human life a lost shoe, happy that the war is over, or happy to be and enhance human functioning. The study of happiness having a good life. Researchers have conceptualized and has received a tremendous boost from the advent of measured happiness in at least two quite different ways. positive psychology. Research on what makes life mean- One is affect balance, indicating having more pleasant ingful has increased too, but perhaps not nearly as much. than unpleasant emotional states, and is thus essentially This special issue of the journal may be a useful correc- an aggregate of how one feels at different moments. The tive in that it undertakes to call the attention of positive other, life satisfaction, goes beyond momentary feelings psychologists (and other interested researchers) to issues to invoke an integrative, evaluative assessment of one’s of meaning and meaningfulness. The present investiga- life as a whole. Assessing both provides a powerful and tion was intended partly to clarify some key differences thorough index of subjective well-being (Linley, Maltby, between happiness and meaningfulness. Wood, Osborne, & Hurling, 2009). We shall argue that although happiness and meaning Thus, happiness can be understood in multiple ways. are important features of a desirable life and indeed are Recently, some positive psychologists and others have interrelated, they have different roots and implications revived a conceptual distinction dating back to Aristotle (MacGregor & Little, 1998). Happiness may be rooted in between feeling happy and living a good life, also *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] © 2013 Taylor & Francis 2 R.F. Baumeister et al. known as eudaimonia (see Deci & Ryan, 2008; Keyes & Although this special issue is devoted to ‘personal Annas, 2009). Meaningfulness is seen as more central to meaning,’ meaning itself is not personal but rather cul- eudaimonia than to simply feeling good. tural. It is like a large map or web, gradually filled in by Meaning can be a purely symbolic or linguistic real- the cooperative work of countless generations. An indi- ity, as in the meaning of a word. The question of life’s vidual’s meaningfulness may be a personally relevant meaning thus applies symbolic ideas to a biological real- section of that giant, culturally created, and culturally ity. Meaningfulness is presumably both a cognitive and transmitted map. an emotional assessment of whether one’s life has pur- One crucial advantage of meaning is that it is not pose and value. People may feel that life is meaningful limited to the immediately present stimulus environment. if they find it consistently rewarding in some way, even Meaningful thought allows people to think about past, if they cannot articulate just what it all means. Our focus future, and spatially distant realities (and indeed even is on meaningfulness and the meaning of life. possibilities). Related to that, meaning can integrate Operationally, we let participants in our studies events across time. Purpose, one important component of define happiness and a meaningful life in whatever meaningfulness, entails that present events draw meaning way they chose, rather than imposing specificdefini- from future ones. The examples listed above of meaning- tions on them. We also assumed (and found) that the ful but unhappy lives (e.g. oppressed political activist) two overlap substantially. Nonetheless, we assume that all involve working toward some future goal or outcome, there are real differences and that people’s responses such that the future outcome is highly desirable even would reflect these. In particular, it should be possible though the present activities may be unpleasant. Mean- to have a highly meaningful life that is not necessarily ingfulness may therefore often involve understanding a happy one (e.g. as religious missionary, political one’s life beyond the here and now, integrating future activist, or terrorist). and past. In
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