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What is meaning in life?

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This is not an easy question

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and you probably don’t reflect daily on this question.

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Experiencing meaning in your life is, however,

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for many among us an important and sought-after aspect of our life.

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In this clip, I will explain how the concept of meaning in life is approached

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by scholars from different disciplines and backgrounds.

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So, what is meaning in life?

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Well, first of all, we need to make clear that meaning IN life is not the same as meaning

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OF life.

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Psychological research focusing on meaning in life,

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or on experiences of meaningfulness in one’s life

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does not focus on the philosophical question of what the meaning of life is,

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why life exists and what the purpose of life in general can be.

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Those metaphysical questions are out of reach for scientific empirical investigation

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within psychology and it is thus not psychology that can address the question on the meaning

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OF life.

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The aim of psychological research on meaning in life is more modest.

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It focuses on how individuals experience meaning in their lives.

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The philosophical question is thus narrowed down to the specific personal experience of

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an individual.

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This does not imply that meaning in life is the sole domain for psychology.

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If we have a look at the literature, we can see that many scholars discussed the question

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of meaning in life.

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Viktor Frankl, for example, was a psychiatrist who lived in Vienna during WW2.

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He lost his entire family in the Nazi concentration camps.

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During the time in the camps, he was confronted with fellow-inmates

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who lost all hope and perspective and suffered from a lack of meaning in their lives.

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Based on this experience,

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he wrote his book Man’s search for meaning

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where he stressed the importance of experiencing meaning for healthy

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human functioning.