Meaning in life and seeing the big picture: Positive affect and global focus

Abstract

Research has demonstrated that there is a strong relationship between positive affect (PA) and meaning in life. It has been suggested that this relationship may exist, in part, because PA facilitates a global cognitive focus, allowing a person to see “the big picture” of his or her life. Although it is possible global focus mediates the relationship between PA and meaning in life, it is also possible that global focus moderates this relationship by either enhancing or weakening the relationship. The present study tested these mediational and moderational hypotheses. In this study, participants completed measures of PA, meaning in life, and a global/local focus task. Results showed that global focus did not mediate the relationship between PA and meaning in life. Instead, global focus moderated the relationship, such that those who had higher global focus were actually less likely to base their meaning in life judgements on PA. Implications for understanding the relation of PA, global focus, and meaning in life are discussed.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by NIMH R01–54142 and NIAAA T32-AA13526.

We thank Nelson Cowan, Jamie Arndt, and Ron Friedman for insightful contributions throughout the development of this project.

Notes

¹Because this was a correlational study, we also ran an analysis using meaning in life, global focus, and the interaction between the two variables to predict PA. The results revealed that, as expected, meaning in life predicted PA; however, the cognitive broadening×meaning in life interaction was not significant (p=.18).