Existential Meaning Research Articles

Amor Fati and the Negation of Life: Examining Existential Meaning in Life and Regret as Processes Involved in the Association Between One’s Love of Fate and Suicidal Ideation

This study examined how amor fati, a positive psychological construct, was associated with suicidal ideation in a sample of 215 young adults. Specifically, components of existential meaning in life (viz., comprehension, purpose, and mattering) and regret were evaluated as potential mediators of the association between amor fati and suicidal ideation. Results of conducting bootstrapped mediation testing with multiple mediators indicated that amor fati was indirectly associated with suicidal ideation through comprehension and mattering. Purpose and regret were not found to mediate the association between amor fati and suicidal ideation. In support of partial mediation, however, the negative association between amor fati and suicidal ideation remained significant even after including components of existential meaning in life and regret in the model. The present findings indicate that amor fati is an important protective factor that should be considered in studies of suicidality in young adults.

A Life's Work? Unpacking the Existential Meaning of Educational Mobilities for Migrant Families

ABSTRACTIt is axiomatic that middle‐class Asian migrant families invest heavily—practically and emotionally—in their children's education. Scholarship has linked this investment to strategies of capital accumulation. There has been little discussion, however, about the transformative nature of these strategies and how they might be framed in terms of migrants' whole lives. This paper applies theoretical concepts from migration studies and a framework proposed by philosopher Charles Taylor, to argue that educational migration should be seen as profoundly life shaping.

Экзистенциальные смыслы образования и науки

Realization of educational process not just attracts to itself various human motives. Essence of education – implementation of initial existential motivation. The essence of education is the realisation of the original existential motivation. Analyses of cultural history show the existence of a basic meaning that can be called educational existential. At the same time, the existential meanings of education are inseparable from the existential appeal of scientific truths.

Does Perceiving the Authentic Self Affect the Meaning of Life?

Self-authenticity and the meaning of life are important for an individual’s psychological well-being. However, studies on the relationship between authenticity and the meaning of life using a quantitative approach have been largely carried out in Western countries, with minimum research being conducted in the Indonesian context. However, several studies have found differences in self-authenticity among different social and cultural conditions. The purpose of this study was to unveil the influence of perceived authenticity on the meaning of life by controlling for self-esteem and positive affect in Indonesian adults. These control variables were added to see the influence of the two variables more precisely. This study involved 369 adult Indonesians (aged 18-64 years old, M=32.2 years). The instruments used were the Authenticity Scale, Multidimensional Existential Meaning Scale, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Test. Data collection was carried out online, and multilevel regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis. The findings indicate that, by controlling for self-esteem and positive affect, feeling authentic influences the person’s meaning in life. Perceived authenticity in the 18-35 age group is lower than in the 36-45 and 46-55 age groups. The study also found that the married group perceives themselves as more authentic than the unmarried. The findings of this study can be a basis for future studies on authenticity in Indonesia and help build awareness about the importance of authenticity for Indonesian adults.

Expressive Arts Intervention for Older Carers of Adult Family Members with Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract Expressive arts-based interventions have proven effective in facilitating discovery, healing, and change across diverse client populations, and particularly in deepening older individuals’ connection with their own creativity, resulting in improvements in physical and mental well-being. In this study, expressive arts-based interventions were utilised in ten groups of Chinese older carers of adult family members with intellectual/developmental disabilities. Focus group interviews were used to investigate the effectiveness. Amongst the forty-seven participants, the majority were mothers between sixty-one and seventy years old. More than half of the care recipients were over the age of thirty. The emergent themes included breakthroughs in self-expression, exploration of existential meaning, and confrontation with impending mortality. Participants had great worries about the future care arrangements, leading to immense feelings of frustration which were suppressed in accordance with prevailing Chinese values. Expressive arts were found effective in facilitating the expression of concealed emotions and expectations. The creative process was therapeutic in reconnecting the participants with forgotten events and relationships to discover positive meanings for change, enlightening them to embrace end-of-life as natural, treasure the present, and re-focus on self. Without a care arrangement solution, they resorted to maintaining health for life extension. Implications for service are included.

Human’s life-world and their worldview: ontological-psychological mechanisms of interaction

The ontological characteristics of the worldview are outlined based on the propositions about the connection between man and the world, their systemic interaction, the determining role of life relationships in the formation of the life world. The features of human interaction with the world as two open systems, which simultaneously act as independent systems and as subsystems of each other, are considered: determinism/self-determination, openness/closedness, involvement/distance. It is emphasized that the interaction within the “Man-World” system takes place in the form of life relations, which are manifested in four main modes (as a relation to the objective world, to another person, to the Absolute, to ones own self) and corresponding meeans of subjects interaction with an object (activity, dialogic relations, self-determination in relation to existential meanings and higher values, cognition and expression of ones own self). Establishing life relations in a certain way and in a certain mode, person thereby builds his/her life world a specially organized reality formed by the dynamic systemic unity of the inner world of a person and that part of the objectively existing external world with which he/she is connected by life relations. Additional possibilities for the analysis of the life world are provided by considering it as an ideal model, which carries knowledge about the utilitarian-pragmatic and symbolic characteristics of social and natural objects, as well as about the corresponding mental states of the subject-carrier of this model. The specific features of such knowledge are the intuitively obvious forms of its provision in everyday human experience, the ability to represent universal cultural meanings and effectiveness. In the plane of objective human relations with the world worldview turns out to be a special way of including a person into the world: on the one hand, it mediates (by posing and searching for answers to “big questions”) the processes of constructing a persons own life world, determining its ontological, epistemological, axiological and praxeological boundaries; on the other hand, it creates contexts in which the external world is transformed (through dialogue-based processes of evaluation, idealization, and generalization) into images, meanings, and values (ideals, beliefs, and life principles) that are existentially significant for a person.

The problem of implementing the principle of semantic rationality in theological research

The article attempts to comprehend the possibility and necessity of implementing the “Principle of Semantic Rationality” in the course of conducting theological research. First, the problem of interpretation of religious terms is raised, formulated in the process of centuries-old theological research, transformed over time, sometimes acquiring opposite (contradictory) meanings. Attention is drawn to the specifics of working with terms that have existential meanings, characterized by some blurring of terminological boundaries, differences in their understanding (interpretation) not only in everyday and religious meanings, but also within the same religion, which causes significant disagreements leading to the emergence of different directions and schools As one example of the ambiguity of interpretation, examples of terminological contradictions in the definition of the concepts of soul (nafs) and spirit (ruh) in the Islamic theological tradition are given. The work provides a brief overview of three groups of encyclopedic and explanatory dictionaries recommended to help the theologian. The first group includes publications covering directly Islamic topics, the second group contains information concerning other religions, and the third group includes religious studies publications that are non-confessional in nature. In conclusion, it is noted that despite the presence of a significant number of authoritative encyclopedic publications, questions of multivariate interpretation of religious terms remain, which, on the one hand, complicates the research process, and on the other hand, stimulates reflection on their deep meanings.

Further evidence in support of psychological flexibility as a model of eudaimonic activity

Recent research demonstrated that associations between psychological flexibility (PF) and subjective well-being are mediated by psychological need satisfaction, in accordance with conceiving PF as a model of eudaimonic activity. The current studies tested whether such relationships persist even when controlling for alternative operationalizations of eudaimonic activity. In Study 1 (N = 289 undergraduates), need satisfaction mediated associations between Psy-Flex scores and both positive affect and life satisfaction when controlling for scores on the Flourishing Scale or Questionnaire for Eudaimonic Well-Being. Similar findings emerged in Study 2 (N = 283 undergraduates) when controlling for scores on the Multidimensional Existential Meaning Scale; these findings were then replicated using a pre-existing data set. We discuss PF in relation to the Eudaimonic Activity Model and Self-Determination Theory.

음악을 전공한 특수교사의 자서전적 생애사 연구

Objectives The purpose of this study is to deeply understand and analyze the process from becoming a music teacher to a special education teacher to find the existential meaning of life and suggest implications for growth as a teacher. Methods Through the autobiographical life history research method, the course of major events according to the chronological flow of a specific section of the teacher's life that had a significant impact on the teacher's life is examined from a first-person perspective to find the existential meaning of life and promote the teacher's internal growth. Results The innate element of immediate action practice was a great help in the process of going from a music teacher to a special education teacher, and all the effort and time invested in the process became an important factor in growing as a teacher. In addition, the reason why I was able to overcome the trials and errors I experienced in the process of becoming a special education teacher may have been due to the researcher's efforts, but the most important thing was that I was able to overcome the trials and errors I experienced in the process of becoming a special education teacher, but the most important thing was that I was able to overcome the trials and errors I experienced in the process of becoming a special education teacher, but the most important thing was that I was able to overcome the trials and errors I experienced in the process of becoming a special education teacher. I learned that I needed to pursue growth. Third, rather than avoiding crises that come in one's life, everyone must go back to the starting point and face them, remembering the passion, enlightenment, and growth process of that period to provide the driving force to overcome the crisis. Fourth, students are also valuable members of the family. She was able to remember once again that teachers have no right to treat students poorly, so they must respect students for who they are. Lastly, I came to find identity and meaning between music and special education in that music motivates me to live as a special education teacher and the process and life of a special education teacher provide a foundation for me to grow to a higher level as a teacher. Conclusions Having the courage to take on a challenge and take immediate action became the driving force that allowed us to achieve our goals and move forward despite environmental difficulties. Second, through experience working in special classes, the true roles and responsibilities of special education teachers and a universal view of education were established. Third, teachers have no right to treat students poorly. Fourth, all the time and effort you put into achieving your goal is meaningful, with nothing left to waste. Fifth, teachers are not perfect, so they need time to rest and recharge. What is more important is whether you grow after making a mistake than the fact that you made a mistake. Sixth, we must have the opportunity for inner growth through time of self-reflection and regain the existential meaning of life.

The truth about man and for man. Practical implications of John Paul II’s encyclical “Fides et ratio”

Twenty-five years ago, John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et ratio was published, where the question of truth occupies a central place. The task of the Church is to transmit to people the truth revealed by Jesus Christ, which discloses the mystery of God and man, is accessible in faith, and appeals to the intellect to accept it. In these times, dominated by a pragmatic approach to reality, a question arises about the practical, existential meaning of the truth proclaimed by the Church. The content analysis of the papal teaching in “Fides et ratio” leads to the conclusion that the truth cannot be reduced to a set of ideas that enrich human cognition. Therefore, the ecclesial ‘diakonia’ of truth serves human life because it helps man use his freedom properly and leads him to the fullness of humanity. The truth allows man to protect himself from relativism and religious egalitarianism threats. The communication of truth should consider people’s needs to perceive it as a precious gift from God, not as a yoke.

Walking the Earth between Ezekiel and Kung Fu 's Caine: Pulp Fiction and 1990s (Popular) Culture between Irony and 'Reenchantment'

Abstract: In the cultural milieu of the 1990s, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) emerges as a compelling exploration of spiritual and moral ambiguity. The film's flamboyantly postmodern narrative intertwines themes of grace and the miraculous, culminating in moments of profound existential reflection—with an ironic twist. Set against the backdrop of a post-Cold War era marked by uncertainty, disillusionment, and hope, Pulp Fiction navigates complex moral and ethical terrain. This paper analyzes Tarantino's movie alongside contemporaneous auteurs such as the Coens and Fincher, exploring their shared engagement with themes of justice, morality, and existential meaning. Through a lens of cultural reenchantment, these films illuminate the moral dilemmas of an era in transition.

Silence as a magnifying glass for uncertainty and affect: The qualitative case studies of Karin and Dana’s journals

This article focuses on what diverse forms of silence (i.e., silence-phenomena) convey about affective processing and meaning-making as processes. Departing from a dialogical perspective that informs sociocultural and existential theories, we qualitatively analyze Karin and Dana’s (pseudonyms) cases. These two Master’s students attended a three-week-long intensive and interdisciplinary course at a Norwegian university. The course is about silence-phenomena, group dynamics, and quality of life. Our primary data consisted of journal entries (Karin, n = 21; Dana, n = 30) that the study participants wrote at different moments of the day during this course, including a morning session called “The Silent Time.” We also included email follow-ups exchanged with the students after the course ended (Karin n = 1; Dana, n = 3). We use Developmentally oriented Thematic Analysis (DOTA) as a method of analysis in order to address both state and process-oriented narratives in their writings. Our research findings suggest that silence-phenomena can amplify the human experience of uncertainty by bringing contrasts that shift our attention inwards or outwards, activating diverse emotions and positionings of the self. We discuss these findings in light of the model of hypergeneralization of affect in cultural psychology and how this model can integrate phenomenological time and existential meaning.

Conversations in couple relationships: a trustful foundation when making future parenthood “real”

Sociologists often argue that communication in long-term couple relationships is the basis on which expectations, trust, and equality are created in contemporary society. However, what is the role of these everyday conversations in uncertain life situations such as expecting one’s first child? This article examines concerns reported by prospective Swedish parents in order to explain the role of communication to alleviate these. Concerns, related to the formation of new relationships with one’s partner, oneself, and one’s future child, are mitigated by referring to the couple’s “good” communication. In the present prenatal situation, the communication pattern (established in the past) seems to serve three functions in mitigating future concerns: (1) the communication generates a trust capital in the relationship, allowing the couple to venture into the uncertain future, (2) the communication makes social perceptions of family life “real” by constructing a common nomos that is internalized in the individual as an existential motto, and (3) the communication legitimizes family practices as democratic when referring to future plans as emerging from responsive and consensual dialogs. In the article it is emphasized that welfare policy needs to be based on an existential legitimacy, often developed in couple conversations, and particularly shaped in life situations characterized by change. However, the stability offered at the conversational micro level may simultaneously prevent macro level changes, a complexity that needs to be considered when developing a gender equality policy that is to resonate with people’s existential meaning making. With the aim of consensus, and the means of balancing conflicts, there is a risk that the conversation will consolidate the interests of the stronger party. In this way, the responsive conversations in long-term relationships may consolidate gender inequality and counteract the welfare policy goal of equalizing power relationships.

Literary Neuroexistentialism: Coming to Terms with Materialism and Finding Meaning in the Age of Neuroscience through Literature

With the rise of the scientific authority of neuroscience and recent neurotechnological advances, the understanding of the human being and its future is beginning to undergo a radical change. As a result, a normative and existential vacuum is opening and hopes as well as fears about the future are flourishing. Some philosophers are anticipating a broad neuroscientific disenchantment, sociocultural disruption and a new existential anxiety related to the clash of the neuroscientific and humanistic image of humans. Others are expecting the technological and scientific developments to lead to human enhancement and existential emancipation. In the first part of this commentary, I outline these two contrasting responses to the rise of neurocentricism and non-anthropocentrism. In the second part, I argue that the divide between the old anthropocentric paradigm and the emerging neuroscientific is misconceived and that literature and fictional narrative are particularly illustrative of the possibility of integrating scientific materialism with humanism. I use the contemporary literary-philosophical work The Creative Act by Rick Rubin to show that humanist ideas can indeed cohere with anti-essentialist and neuroscientific notions of personal identity and self and how existential meaning and comfort can be found in a neuroscientifically and deterministically explained world.

The Protective Role of Curiosity Behaviors in Coping with Existential Vacuum.

An existential vacuum is experienced as a kind of crisis that one can cope with using his/her strengths. The related literature suggests that the important determinants of coping with existential emptiness include positive emotional and personality resources, and among these-Curiosity Behaviors. The purpose of this study is to describe the role of curiosity as an important factor in relation to emotional resources in individuals experiencing an existential vacuum. A survey was conducted using online tools (n = 484). The hypotheses about the direct and indirect relationships between Curiosity Behaviors and existential vacuum were tested using multiple regression analyses and mediations. The study involved a sample of adult participants representing the general population. The participants completed five questionnaires, the first one focusing on Curiosity Behaviors, such as seeking out novel and challenging experiences and engagement in activities that capture one's attention (The Curiosity and Exploration Inventory), and the other tools being the Multidimensional Existential Meaning Scale, the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire, the Flourishing Scale, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale. The results indicate that Curiosity Behaviors characteristically negatively predict existential vacuum. In addition, other variables, such as Flourishing, seem to be useful in explaining the relationships between these factors. Flourishing along with Curiosity increases a sense of Meaning in Life. Our results present evidence showing the importance of Curiosity Behaviors in coping with the existential vacuum.

Americanized discourses of religious freedom and Christian persecution during the 2022 Ottawa trucker convoy

In this article, Hannah Dick draws on Stewart Hoover’s concept of mediated imaginaries to help explain the transnational circulation of Americanized discourses during the 2022 Canadian trucker convoy protest in Ottawa. She examines the mediated objects produced by the convoy participants, including physical signs erected throughout downtown Ottawa and also those that circulated on social media platforms and in official communications published by convoy leaders. Using textual analysis, she explores the role of Americanized Christian discourses in charging the Canadian convoy movement with both political and existential meaning. It is argued that while the convoy does not represent a simple importation of American religio-political organizing consistent with theories of cultural imperialism, the symbolic resonances of Americanized discourses of freedom and Christian persecution nevertheless provide a flexible and robust affective infrastructure that is adaptable for the Canadian context.

Factor Model of Life-Planning Competence in High School Students

Life-planning competence is an integral personality trait that characterizes one’s desire and ability to implement one’s potential, i.e., knowledge, skills, experience, character traits, etc., in order to achieve one’s life objectives. It consists of motivational, cognitive, emotional, volitional, axiological, semantic, operational, reflective, and proactive components. The present research featured the life-planning competence in high school students (n = 200; 2019–2022) of the city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia. The resulting strategies demonstrated a connection with the concept of being-inthe-world by M. Heidegger and L. Binswanger, as well as A. Längle’s concept of fundamental existential motivations. The statistical analysis involved the principal component method with Varimax rotation and Kaiser sampling. The factor analysis revealed eight factors: 1) purposefulness, meaningfulness, and readiness for life planning; 2) cooperation; 3) reflexive activity control; 4) correlation with the world; 5) control of oneself and the situation; 6) self-awareness; 7) dynamic balance; 8) self-development. These factors connected the process of life-planning with the four existential fundamental motivations identified by A. Längle and the forms of being-in-the-world described by M. Heidegger and L. Binswanger. The high school students demonstrated a motivation for physical survival and spiritual overcoming of existence, as well as a desire to enjoy life, experience values, find self-identity, and seek justice. As teenagers, they lacked the fourth existential motivation, i.e., motivation to obtain existential meaning.

Interaction between anxiety symptoms and decreased meaning in life: One possible pathway linking childhood trauma and depression- evidence from the network analysis

BackgroundRobust evidence suggests that individuals exposed to childhood trauma are more vulnerable to suffering from later depression. However, the pathway connecting the experience of childhood trauma and depression remains unclear. Participants and settingsA total of 3663 participants from six colleges in China completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-7, and Multidimensional Existential Meaning Scale. Among all participants, 3115 (Mage = 19.20, SDage = 1.38, males = 1384) participants met the selective standard of suffering from childhood trauma and were divided into the traumatized depressed group (the DT group) (n = 1432, Mage = 19.26, males = 700) and traumatized non-depressed group (the UDT group) (n = 1683, Mage = 19.15, males = 684). MethodsIn the present study, we examined the comorbidity of anxiety and the facets of meaning in the life network model. We then calculated the bridge symptoms and compared the networks of the DT group and the UDT group. ResultsThe results of the t-test showed that the DT group scored significantly higher on all symptoms of anxiety and significantly lower on all dimensions of meaning in life compared to the UDT group. Meanwhile, the strongest bridge exists between “Mattering” and “Restlessness” in the symptom network of the DT group, while there is no bridge in the symptom network of the UDT group. The result of NCT indicates that the global strength and the EI value of “Mattering” are significantly higher in the symptom network of the DT group than in the UDT group. ConclusionIntervention targeting improving the self-esteem of individuals suffering from childhood trauma may help to alleviate their depression and anxiety symptoms.

ТЕОРІЯ МУЗИЧНОЇ ОСВІТИ: ПОСТНЕКЛАСИЧНИЙ ЕТАП

The article examines the importance of considering a person as the main subject of educational processes and the process of personality formation through a valuable approach to the surrounding world, oneself and others. The author claims that human knowledge, unlike natural sciences, is subjective, individual and filled with existential meanings and values. However, the current education system is often incompatible with the culture and does not contribute to the formation of a "worldview". The article emphasizes the ideological contradiction between the technocratic (scientific) paradigm of education and the idea of education as a humanistic and cultural phenomenon. The sphere of education reacts most sensitively to crisis processes of both a global and local nature, and reveals its own signs of a crisis that was formed as a result of the gap between the technocratic, scientific world and the world of culture, the world of humanitarianism itself. It is substantiated that progressive trends in the development of the world community caused the formation of a human-centered educational paradigm of the new post-industrial society. This direction fully corresponds to the paradigm of both global and national dimensions of social progress, which is normatively established in many international documents and legal acts of the UN, EU, UNESCO, etc. It was found out that it is generally recognized in the scientific discourse that there is currently a transition of humanity from one system of values that was established in the European culture of the New Age, which raised the status of scientific and technical achievements of humanity to a higher pedestal of knowledge, rejecting at the same time value consciousness at the gates of culture, to a new system of values that is commensurate with man, his humanitarian nature and human existence. This is connected with the establishment of the value system of post-non-classical science and culture, so the task is to understand the value matrix of post-non-classical culture, singling out those values that are commensurate with the humanitarian essence of a person.

Энергия эстетического переживания

<p>The article is devoted to the comparison of classical and modern understanding of the subject of aesthetics. During the theoretical self-definition of aesthetics in the system of philosophy (Baumgarten, Kant) it was understood as a bridge uniting empiricism of individual sensuality with universality of rational knowledge, as an experience of unity of sensual and supersensual activity of aesthetic consciousness of the subject. Such an interpretation corresponded to the ideal of a whole person in the unity of reason, feeling, spirit, will, and imagination. Contemporary aesthetics defines its subject matter as individual sensual experience, removing from it the basis of the cultural subject's self-consciousness of value. The central problem of the article is a characteristic of aesthetic experience as a procedural form of living through the value and meaningful depth of the experienced aesthetic feeling. Experiencing is treated as an emotional and intellectual process, producing inner work of comprehension of the feeling of staying in the self-relation of the cultural-historical subject with the world. The inner energy of aesthetic experience is born through the creative work of intuition and imagination, creating the likeness of a work of art, but not materialised in the language of art, but staying in the continuing state of internal residence of the imaginary image. The aesthetic experience expands the threshold of human sensibility and reveals the dimension of each phenomenon of reality in such a way that the aesthetic object is more than the object, and the subject more than the empirical individual. This is the essence of the aesthetic, indicating the difference between the aesthetic sense and the mere sensual response of individual consciousness to contact with an object. The subject of aesthetic experience is the subject of a world-relationship, experiencing the world differently in images of chaos or harmony, eternity or the mutability of time of being. Space and time in the axiosphere of culture become subjectivized and are experienced as sensual and semantic phenomena included in the aesthetic thesaurus of culture. In his analysis of the sublime, Kant spoke of the special creative energy of the aesthetic feeling, giving it the depth and duration of the subject's state of mind. Due to the inner tension of the interaction of feelings and meanings, aesthetic experience evokes a vivid sensual and supersensual response of man to his belonging to being. It extends the range of emotional and intellectual faculties of consciousness, which remains as the memory of aesthetic experience, multiplying the possibilities of future experiences. Aesthetic experience expresses the process of synergy between sensuality and the existential meanings of the historical subject's existential world. The final conclusion of the article is that in aesthetic experience based on a complex set of sensual and supersensual transformations of aesthetic existence of man in the world, sensual experience is only one of the components, which convinces the need for modern research to address the totality of the contents of aesthetics, especially its axiological aspects.</p>