Research On The Development Of Meaning In Life Among College Students

Meaning in life is considered to be one of the most important factors in coping with stress,helps individuals find a sense of purpose in some challenging processes,and also serves as a protective factor to stimulate one’s ability to cope.It is crucial to systematically understand the developmental process of meaning in life among college students.This study intends to investigate the development of meaning in life among college students.This study used a combination of meta-analysis,cross-temporal meta-analysis and empirical follow-up research to systematically investigate the meaning in life among college students.Among them,study 1 adopted meta-analysis to examine the correlations between two dimensions of meaning in life(i.e.,presence of meaning and search for meaning)among college students;in study 2,the cross-temporal meta-analysis adopted to explore the trends in the level of meaning in life among college students over time;study 3 adopted a longitudinal design to examine the developmental trajectory of meaning in life among college students based on a latent growth model.The main fingdings of this study included:(1)Based on the meta-analysis,it was found that the correlation coefficient between presence of meaning in life and search for meaning in life of college students was 0.250,which reached a significant level.The measurement instruments and sanple sources play a moderating role in the relationship between college students’ presence of meaning in life and search for meaning in life.(2)The cross-temporal meta-analysis study showed that college students’ meaning in life scores decreased by 3.192 between 2010 and2022,reaching a small effect;the presence of meaning in life and search for meaning in life decreased by 1.552 and 3.360 respectively from 2005 to 2021,with the effect of search for meaning in life reaching a medium effect.(3)The empirical study found that the overall level of meaning in life and search for meaning in life of college students both showed a decreasing trend,however,the presence of meaning in life had a decreasing and increasing trend in the follow-up survey,and seemed to be increasing overall.In summary,the following conclusions were drawn from this study:(1)The relationship between college students’ presence of meaning and search for meaning was more supportive of the “Search-Presence”model,i.e.,a positive relationship,and the relationship between the two was affected by different measurement instruments and sanple sources.(2)College students’ level of meaning in life decreased with age,and the decline in search for meaning in life was greater than that of presence of meaning in life.(3)There was a clear trajectory of change in the overall level of meaning in life for college students,with individual with high initial scores declining more slowly.