Making sense: Meaning in life in a cognitive context

Meaning in life is an important contributor to psychological and physical health. In this chapter, we consider how this aspect of well-being relates to constructs within social psychology and social cognition that describe people's attempts to make sense of their existence and social environment. We first review the relationship between the experience of meaning in life and information processing styles. Next, we distinguish between proximal and more distal variables that influence the experience of meaning. Proximal social cognitive variables include positive affect and the detection of environmental regularities. We then describe more distal sources of meaning, such as religious and secular worldviews, and consider additional potential distal sources that have not yet been examined. We close by considering intriguing research directions for the role of cognition in the experience of meaning.