Existential Meaning and Religious Orientation in Adulthood
Existential Meaning and Religious Orientation in Adulthood

Summary/Abstract: By using qualitative and quantitative research methods, this study investigates, on the one hand the meaning and the sources of meaning in life and, on the other hand, the influence of religious orientation, the sources of meaning profile, and the gender of the subjects regarding the meaning of life in adulthood. In order to achieve the first target we carried out our study on a number of 150 adult subjects by applying the free association method (to write down the first 5 words that come into their mind when they hear “meaning of life” and “sources of meaning”). The most important images for the meaning in life are connected to the religious perspective (salvation) and the folk traditional one (meaning is life itself), as for the sources of the meaning in live, these ranged in the private circle. For the second study, the general hypothesis (the religious orientation, the sources of meaning profile and the gender of the subjects influence the meaning of life in adulthood) has been partially proven. The meaning of life in adulthood differs according to the religious orientations and the gender of the subjects. The results, both the qualitative analysis and the statistic ones, generally confirm the clinical importance of meaning in laying out one’s life.

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