Adolescence and Development of Meaning: Comparing the Sources and Dimensions of Meaning in Life in Adolescent Boys and Girls

Despite the numerous studies that have been conducted on meaning in life, there is still an ambiguity that what are the sources of meaning in an adolescent’s life and how adolescent girls and boys differ regarding these sources and dimensions of presence and search for meaning. The present study has investigated the sources and domains that gives meaning to adolescents’ lives from their point of view, presence of and search for meaning and differences between girls and boys in these components. In this regard 416, 12 to 18 years old adolescents (M: 15.94, Std: 1.32, 54.3 % females) have completed the Schedule for Meaning in Life Evaluation and Meaning in Life questionnaires. Chi-square and independent t tests were used to analyze the data. The results show that among the sources of meaning regarding to The Schedule for Meaning in Life Evaluation respectively the “family” (91.3%), “social relations” (53.4%) and “occupation and education” (53%) are the areas that most frequently have been reported as a source of meaning by adolescents. Moreover, seven new categories of sources of meaning in life have been identified in this study of which “information technology” (15%) and “future” (12.3%) had the highest frequencies. Female and male participants differed in the frequency of mentioning some of these sources and also their satisfaction from these areas as well as the dimension of presence of meaning. These findings have been discussed in the context of developmental and meaning in life theories.