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The Relationships of Meaning in Life with Subjective Well-Being and Depression: Comparison between University Students and Middle-Aged Adults

Abstract

This study examined the relationships of meaning in life with subjective well-being and depression using samples of university students(n=308) and middle-aged adults(n=154). The results showed significant association of importance, consistency, and meaningfulness of meaning in life with subjective well-being regardless of age. On the other hand, consistency and meaningfulness of meaning in life showed significant association with depression and the relationship between meaning in life and depression was stronger in middle-aged adults. Next, regardless of age, participants who experienced a sense of meaningfulness from the source of self-related factors reported a high level of subjective well-being and a lower level of depression, and those experiencing a sense of meaningfulness from family relationship reported a lower level of depression. However, university students experiencing a sense of meaningfulness from friend relationship reported a higher level of subjective well-being and a lower level of depression, while middle-aged adults sensing meaningfulness from social services and contributions reported a higher level of subjective well-being and those sensing meaningfulness from partner relationship reported a lower level of depression. These findings suggest that the relationships between diverse dimensions of meaning in life and psychological health may vary by age, yet which needs to be considered in that this study is exploratory with a newly developed scale on limited samples.

keywords
meaning in life, dimension of meaning in life, source of meaning in life, subjective well-being, depression, 삶의 의미, 삶의 의미 차원, 삶의 의미 원천, 주관적 안녕, 우울

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