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The personality of meaning in life: Associations

between dimensions of life meaning and the Big
Five

Katie M. Lavigne , Samantha Hofman , Angela J. Ring , Andrew G. Ryder &

Todd S. Woodward

To cite this article: Katie M. Lavigne , Samantha Hofman , Angela J. Ring , Andrew G.
Ryder & Todd S. Woodward (2013) The personality of meaning in life: Associations between
dimensions of life meaning and the Big Five, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 8:1, 34-43, DOI:
10.1080/17439760.2012.736527

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2012.736527

Published online: 01 Nov 2012.

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The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2013
Vol. 8, No. 1, 34–43, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2012.736527

The personality of meaning in life: Associations between dimensions of life meaning

and the Big Five
Katie M. Lavigneab, Samantha Hofmanc, Angela J. Ringc,
Andrew G. Rydercd and Todd S. Woodwardab*
a
Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; bTranslational Research Unit, BC Mental
Health and Addictions Research Institute, Provincial Health Services Authority, Vancouver, Canada; cDepartment of
Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada; dCulture and Mental Health Research Unit, Lady Davis Institute,
Sir Mortimer B. Davis – Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Canada
(Received 26 July 2011; final version received 28 September 2012)

The goal of the current study was to identify aspects of personality that are associated with different ways in
which people find meaning in life. This was achieved using constrained principal component analysis (CPCA) on
data from 322 university students, who completed the Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life questionnaire
and the Big Five Aspects Scale. CPCA demonstrated that personality traits and life meaning are associated, but
not redundant, with one another. Specifically, respondents with high scores on lower-level aspects of Openness to
Experience tended to derive meaning from questioning, learning and challenging tradition, whereas those with
high scores on aspects of Conscientiousness and Extraversion tended to derive meaning from success at work,
health, and family. Results suggest that personality traits are associated with variations in the domains used to
derive meaning in life, and demonstrate the utility of CPCA as an innovative statistical technique for the study of
individual differences.
Keywords: personality; meaning; big five; principal component analysis; multivariate multiple regression

Introduction anxiety (Mascaro & Rosen, 2008), and have a higher

There is substantial evidence that the attribution of incidence of substance use and suicidal behaviour
meaning to one’s life is an important basis of psycho- (Edwards & Holden, 2001; Harlow, Newcomb, &
logical well-being and general health, and that a sense Bentler, 1986).
of meaninglessness leaves one at risk for psychopa- People vary widely in the extent to which life is
thology (Ryff & Keyes, 1995; Zika & Chamberlain, experienced as meaningful, and this variation has
1992). Researchers have focused on the positive striking implications for well-being. It behoves us
outcomes of perceiving life as meaningful, and likewise then to consider how dimensions of individual differ-
the negative outcomes of perceiving life as meaningless. ence, especially the well-validated and widely studied
A number of variables have been connected to the Big Five personality traits, are associated with this
perception of life meaning, including positive affect sense of having meaning in life. Some of the investi-
(King, Hicks, Krull, & Del Gaiso, 2006), social gated associations involve constructs conceptually
connectedness (Twenge, Catanese, & Baumeister, related to life meaning. For example, positive health
2003), and the cognitive accessibility of one’s true self behaviours, such as decreased substance use and
(Schlegel, Hicks, Arndt, & King, 2009). Finding increased physician visits, have been related to
meaning in life is also positively associated with Conscientiousness (Roberts, Walton, & Bogg, 2005).
measures of well-being and its various components, Volunteerism has been related to Extraversion and
such as happiness, life-satisfaction, and spirituality Agreeableness, and positive appraisal of events to
(Mascaro & Rosen, 2006). Conversely, the perception Extraversion and (low) Neuroticism (Ozer & Benet-
of life as meaningless has been shown to relate Martinez, 2006). Self-compassion understood as a
positively to psychopathology (Scannell, Allen, & personal strength aiding in the search for hope and
Burton, 2002; Zika & Chamberlain, 1992). For exam- meaning in challenging times, has been related to
ple, people who perceive life as meaningless are at Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and
greater risk for disorders such as depression and (low) Neuroticism (Neff, Rude, & Kirkpatrick, 2007).

*Corresponding author. Email: Todd.S.Woodward@gmail.com

ß 2013 Taylor & Francis

2 The Journal of Positive Psychology 35

A few studies have used measures that purport to Disagreeableness and Self-transcendence; and between
directly measure meaning, and have examined associ- Extraversion/Openness and Self-actualization as well
ations with the Big Five personality domains. as Well-being and Relatedness. Each of these was also
Henningsgaard and Arnau (2008) found that spiri- significantly related to meaningfulness, but only
tual meaning was associated with Extraversion, Extraversion/Openness showed a direct association in
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and (low) the path analysis. Twenty-six separate regression
Neuroticism. A general sense of meaningfulness in analyses were then conducted to examine more in-
life has also been related to Extraversion and (low) depth relations between sources of life meaning and the
Neuroticism (Francis & Hills, 2008; Halama, 2005), as Big Four. This analysis revealed significant effects
well as Conscientiousness (Halama, 2005). between: (a) Neuroticism and four SoMe scales; (b)
Early instruments assessing life meaning assumed a Extraversion/Openness to Experience and 15 SoMe
single dimension from meaningfulness to meaningless- scales; (c) Conscientiousness and 11 SoMe scales; and
ness; following debate around this practice (Mascaro & (d) Disagreeableness and six SoMe scales.
Rosen, 2008; Ryff & Keys, 1995), researchers have These associations further demonstrate the interre-
explored a more nuanced understanding of this con- latedness of personality and sources of meaning, but
struct. Steger, Kashdan, Sullivan, and Lorentz (2008) this set of results could be simplified using multivariate
suggested a relation between the search for meaning analysis methodology. To study four personality
and the presence of meaning with personality. Using domains and 26 sources of meaning, Schnell and
the NEO PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992a) to measure the Becker (2006) observed 104 possible personality-mean-
Big Five personality traits and the Meaning in Life ing links, and the number of links would increase
Questionnaire (Steger, Frazier, Oishi, & Kaler, 2006) to further if one were to consider lower-order narrow-
measure meaning, they found distinct associations band personality dimensions, as is often recommended
between some personality traits and the search for (e.g. Costa & McCrae, 1992b; DeYoung, Quilty, &
versus the presence of meaning. Certain facets of Peterson, 2007). Although alpha levels were adjusted
Openness to Experience and Agreeableness were asso- accordingly, employing separate univariate multiple
ciated with a search for meaning, whereas certain facets regressions for each of the 26 sources of life meaning
of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and does not take into account their shared variance, which
(low) Neuroticism were associated with the presence of can be used to simplify interpretation of overlap
meaning, a sense of purpose in life. between two datasets (namely, personality and sources
While there is now a robust body of literature of meaning).
linking the sense of life’s meaning to key dimensions of When comparing two broad and multifaceted
individual difference on the one hand, and important constructs, it is common in the individual differences
outcomes on the other, there is relatively little work on literature to use separate techniques to derive the
how people derive this sense in the first place. The life primary dimensions and then interrelate them. For
domains upon which one can potentially rely for a example, one might compute the number of primary
sense of meaningfulness is potentially very broad. dimensions using principal component analysis (PCA)
Their proper study thus requires the multifaceted in a first step, followed by multiple regression in a
approach to the study of life meaning that has emerged second step, using personality traits (e.g. the Big Five)
in recent years. To this end, based on theoretical work as the predictor variables, and the derived SoMe
combined with qualitative analyses of focus groups, dimensions as criterion variables. However, this
Schnell and Becker (2006) developed the Sources of method does not produce dimensions of life meaning
Meaning and Meaning in Life (SoMe) questionnaire. that are specifically predictable from personality;
This multidimensional Self-report instrument assesses rather, it relates personality traits back to known
two dimensions of meaning in life (i.e. meaningfulness dimensions of the SoMe. This is because the primary
and crisis of meaning) as well as 26 potential sources of dimensions of the SoMe are not optimized to summa-
meaning. These sources of life meaning are factor rize the variance in the SoMe that is predictable from
analyzable into Self-transcendence (Vertical and personality, and inevitably contain variance resulting
Horizontal; Schnell, 2009), Self-actualization, Order, from other factors that may not be of interest. In order
and Well-being and Relatedness. to identify personality-predictable dimensions, multi-
Schnell and Becker (2006) used path analysis to variate multiple regression must be carried out in the
examine relations between the Big Four personality first step in order to isolate the variance in the SoMe
domains of the Trier Integrated Personality Inventory that is predictable from personality, and PCA carried
(TIPI; Becker, 2003; Neuroticism, Extraversion/ out in a second step on the variance-constrained
Openness, Conscientiousness, and Disagreeableness), predicted scores from the multivariate multiple regres-
the four dimensions of sources of life meaning, and sion. This is not a subtle distinction: the dimensions
meaningfulness. They reported significant associa- resulting from the latter method (which explain the
tions between Conscientiousness and Order; maximum variance predictable from personality)
36 K.M. Lavigne et al. 3

almost always differ substantially from the former into Horizontal and Vertical dimensions, which refer
(which explain the maximum overall variance). If the to deriving meaning from societal issues and spiritual
aim is to investigate the dimensions underlying life sources, respectively (Schnell, 2009). Self-actualization
meaning that are specifically predictable from person- refers to finding meaning in actualizing one’s inner
ality, as is the case in the current study, it is preferable potential and succeeding in life. Well-being and
to use a statistical method that is designed for this Relatedness refers to deriving meaning from leisure
purpose. and social relationships. Finally, Order refers to
We therefore employed constrained principal com- finding meaning in rationality, values, and conserva-
ponent analysis (CPCA; Hunter & Takane, 1998, 2002; tism. The BFAS is a 100-item questionnaire that
Takane & Hunter, 2001; Takane & Shibayama, 1991), indexes the Big Five personality domains and provides
a method that combines multivariate multiple regres- scores for 10 lower-level aspects, two for each of the
sion and PCA, for the present study. CPCA allows one Big Five (DeYoung, Quilty, & Peterson, 2007):
to examine the component structure of the variance in Neuroticism (volatility, withdrawal); Extraversion
a set of criterion variables (e.g. the SoMe subscales) (enthusiasm, assertiveness); Openness to Experience
that is specifically predicted by a set of predictor (intellect, openness); Agreeableness (compassion,
variables (e.g. the Big Five aspects). In addition to politeness); and Conscientiousness (industriousness,
determining the primary dimensions of the SoMe that orderliness). Subscale reliabilities for this sample
are predictable from personality, this methodology ranged from 0.59 (social commitment) to 0.95 (explicit
allows determination of the percentage of overall religiosity) for the SoMe and 0.68 (politeness) to 0.90
variance in the SoMe that personality accounts for, (volatility) for the BFAS, and were generally compa-
and the percentage of overall variance in the SoMe rable to previously published values (DeYoung et al.,
accounted for by each extracted dimension. As such, 2007; Schnell & Becker, 2006).
this approach allows us not only to determine specific
links between personality and meaning constructs, but
draw general conclusions about the extent to which
Statistical analysis
sources of meaning are reducible to, related to, or
independent from personality traits. For the current study, the criterion variables consisted
of participants’ standardized mean scores on the
SoMe’s 26 sources of life meaning (322 partici-
Method pants  26 variables), and the predictor variables
consisted of participants’ standardized mean scores
Participants
on the ten BFAS aspects (322 participants  10 vari-
As part of a larger online study, 322 university students ables). CPCA is performed in two steps, referred to as
(79% female) completed the SoMe and the BFAS. the external analysis and internal analysis. The external
Ages ranged from 17 to 54, with a mean of 23.57 analysis consists of a multivariate multiple regression
(SD ¼ 6.16). Participants in psychology courses of the criterion variables on the predictor variables.
received course credit for participation; other partici- This is simply the multivariate analogue of a least
pants were entered into a draw to win a cash prize. This squares linear regression. The set of criterion variables
study was approved by the Human Research Ethics is referred to as the overall matrix (the total variance in
Committee at the university where data collection took the SoMe subscales). The external analysis produces
place. two matrices from the overall matrix. These two
matrices reflect the three elements of a simple regres-
sion equation, namely, the predicted and residual
Measures scores. The matrix of predicted scores reflects the
The SoMe is a 151-item self-report questionnaire variance in the SoMe subscales that is predictable from
assessing two dimensions of meaning in life (i.e. the BFAS aspects, whereas the matrix of residual
meaningfulness and crisis of meaning) as well as scores reflects the variance in the SoMe subscales that
26 potential sources of life meaning (see Table A1 in is not predictable from the BFAS aspects.
the Appendix). Meaningfulness refers to a fundamental The internal analysis consists of PCAs on each of
sense of meaning, based on a feeling that one’s life is these three matrices. The resulting three component
coherent, significant, and purposeful, whereas crisis of solutions (overall, predicted, and residual solutions,
meaning refers to a sense of one’s life as empty, respectively) can then be examined to determine which
pointless, and lacking meaning (Schnell, 2009, 2010, dimensions of the SoMe can be explained by person-
2011). The 26 sources of meaning make up four ality and which cannot. In order to determine the
dimensions (Schnell & Becker, 2006): Self-transcen- particular BFAS scales that are related to each of the
dence, Self-actualization, Order, and Well-being and components extracted from the predicted solution,
Relatedness. Self-transcendence can be further divided correlations are computed between participants’ scores
4 The Journal of Positive Psychology 37

Table 1. Variance (cell values in regular font) and percentage of variance accounted for (cell values in italics) by the CPCA.

Internal analysis (PCA)

External analysis (regression) 1 2 3 4 5 All components

Overall 26.0 4.2 3.3 2.9 2.9 2.6 15.8

Overall (%) 100.0 16.0 12.5 11.1 11.1 10.1 60.8
Predictable 6.0 2.1 1.9 – – – 4.0
Overall (%) 23.2 8.1 7.2 – – – 15.3
Predictable (%) 100.0 34.9 31.0 – – – 65.9
Residual 20.0 2.0 2.9 1.9 2.0 2.3 11.1
Overall (%) 76.8 7.5 11.2 7.2 7.7 9.0 42.6
Residual (%) 100.0 9.8 14.6 9.4 10.0 11.7 55.5

Notes: The external analysis consisted of a multivariate multiple regression of the SoMe on the BFAS. The internal analysis
consisted of three different principal component analyses (PCAs): one on the unconstrained variance in the SoMe (Overall), one
on the variance in the SoMe predictable from the BFAS (Predictable) and one on the variance in the SoMe not predictable from
the BFAS (Residual). The variance accounted for by the external analysis and each component extracted in the internal analysis is
listed in rows labeled in regular font. The percentages of variance accounted for by the external analysis and each component
extracted in the internal analysis are listed in rows labeled in italic font. Overall (%): percentage of overall variance attributable
to the source identified in each column. Predictable (%): percentage of predictable variance attributable to the source identified
in each column, and Residual (%): percentage of residual variance attributable to the source identified in each column. Values
can be computed by dividing the appropriate variance values listed in regular font. All internal analyses were separately rotated
using varimax. Order of components generally corresponds to the magnitude of variance explained, but was re-ordered for the
residual solution to reflect Table 5.

on each component and their scores on the ten BFAS creativity (aesthetic sense), knowledge (questioning,
scales. For the PCAs, the number of components keeping informed), unison with nature (harmony with
retained was determined by inspection of scree plots. nature), self-knowledge (confrontation and analysis of
All PCA solutions were separately rotated using oneself), social commitment (commitment for justice),
varimax with Kaiser normalization. Computations and challenge (endeavour, adventure); negative load-
were carried out using MATLAB version 7.6 ings on tradition (holding onto the well-established)
(MathWorks, 2008).1 and practicality (pragmatism and realism). This com-
ponent was labeled questioning/learning. The second
component was characterized by positive loadings on
health (fitness, wholesome nutrition), care (consider-
Results
ation and helpfulness), power (fight, dominance),
Table 1 shows the distribution of variance for each of community (friendship, close family), generativity
the elements of the CPCA (i.e. overall, predicted, and (creating things valued beyond one’s death), and
residual solutions). The column representing the exter- achievement (competence, skill, success), and was
nal analysis shows that the BFAS accounted for 23.2% labeled responsibility.
of the variance in the SoMe, while the columns Predictor loadings are computed as correlations
representing the internal analysis show the percentage between component scores and the set of predictor
of variance accounted for by the components extracted variables (i.e. BFAS aspects). These are listed in
from each solution. Table 4 and plotted in Figure 2, and should be
The component loadings of the 26 SoMe subscales interpreted alongside Table 3 and Figure 1, as simul-
for the overall solution, prior to the external analysis, taneous interpretation of Tables 3 and 4 (or Figures 1
are presented in Table 2. Five components were and 2) is necessary for understanding the SoMe
extracted, and the resulting structure showed strong components predictable from personality (namely,
similarities to the originally reported factor structure of questioning/learning and responsibility). Predictor
the SoMe (Schnell & Becker, 2006), with all originally loadings are essential for interpretation of the compo-
reported dimensions emerging in the results, including nents derived from the predicted solution because they
the distinction between Horizontal and Vertical Self- relate the derived components back to the set of
transcendence, which was described later by Schnell predictor variables. As can be observed in Table 4,
(2009). questioning/learning was most strongly correlated with
The component loadings for the SoMe dimensions the openness, intellect, and assertiveness aspects of the
predictable from personality are listed in Table 3 and Big Five, while responsibility was most strongly
plotted in Figure 1. The dominant loadings on the first correlated with orderliness, industriousness, compas-
component were as follows: positive loadings on sion, enthusiasm, assertiveness, and intellect.
38 K.M. Lavigne et al. 5

Table 2. Component loadings for overall solution (PCA on SoMe subscales).

Component

Horizontal Self- Well-being and Vertical

SoMe scale self-transcendence actualization Order relatedness self-transcendence

Social commitment 0.72 0.04 0.06 0.14 0.11

Unison with nature 0.70 0.10 0.20 0.23 0.02
Knowledge 0.70 0.35 0.13 0.04 0.00
Harmony 0.67 0.15 0.13 0.32 0.23
Self-knowledge 0.63 0.39 0.10 0.02 0.19
Development 0.62 0.44 0.31 0.09 0.04
Creativity 0.53 0.34 0.34 0.13 0.12
Health 0.50 0.22 0.38 0.19 0.08
Generativity 0.46 0.31 0.38 0.25 0.32
Individualism 0.31 0.78 0.08 0.00 0.05
Freedom 0.23 0.66 0.07 0.07 0.06
Power 0.24 0.61 0.36 0.14 0.02
Challenge 0.25 0.60 0.09 0.39 0.11
Wellness 0.29 0.49 0.02 0.34 0.17
Reason 0.09 0.00 0.76 0.06 0.03
Practicality 0.11 0.14 0.71 0.23 0.13
Achievement 0.00 0.45 0.69 0.04 0.02
Morality 0.13 0.03 0.57 0.25 0.41
Fun 0.02 0.30 0.17 0.75 0.05
Community 0.18 0.01 0.20 0.74 0.01
Care 0.25 0.00 0.24 0.66 0.04
Love 0.12 0.11 0.06 0.60 0.28
Spirituality 0.10 0.08 0.09 0.07 0.87
Explicit religiosity 0.06 0.11 0.12 0.02 0.80
Tradition 0.22 0.24 0.34 0.16 0.62
Attentiveness 0.35 0.26 0.03 0.48 0.53

Note: All loadings greater than or equal to 0.40 are set in bold text.

Table 5 presents the component loadings of the people with high levels of Extraversion (both aspects),
SoMe subscales for the five components extracted from Conscientiousness (both aspects), the compassion
the residual solution. These components are computed aspect of Agreeableness, and the intellect aspect of
on sources of variance in the SoMe subscales that are Openness to Experience were more likely to attribute
specifically not predictable from personality. In accor- meaning to activities that involve success at work,
dance with the novelty of the dimensions that were good health and a sense of family. Importantly, these
predictable from personality, the five components that dimensions in meaning of life, which maximize the
emerged in the residual solution showed strong simi- variance predictable from personality, differed sub-
larities to the overall solution. However, close inspec- stantially from the standard scale dimensions, which
tion of the loadings demonstrates that the residual simply maximize the overall variance in the SoMe.
solution differs slightly from the overall solution due to Those dimensions computed on the variance in the
the variance removed by the predicted solution. SoMe that was not predictable from the BFAS essen-
tially retrieved the five components that were present in
the overall solution: Horizontal Self-
transcendence, Self-actualization, Order, Well-being
Discussion and Relatedness, and Vertical Self-transcendence
The current study, using comprehensive measures of (Tables 2 and 5). For example, the Vertical Self-
meaning and the Big Five, and a novel multivariate transcendence dimension from the overall solution is
statistical analysis technique, demonstrated that per- not reflected in the predicted solution, and is relatively
sonality traits are associated with deriving life meaning unchanged in the residual solution, consistent with
in particular ways. Specifically, people with high levels Rican and Janosova’s (2010) finding that spirituality
of Openness to Experience (both aspects) and of the and the Big Five comprise six separate components. At
assertiveness aspect of Extraversion were more likely to a glance, the similarities between the overall and
characterize activities involving questioning, learning, residual solutions appear to suggest that the Big Five
and challenging tradition as meaningful. Conversely, is not especially associated with sources of life meaning.
6 The Journal of Positive Psychology 39

Table 3. Component loadings for predicted solution (PCA Table 4. Predictor loadings for predicted solution (PCA on
on SoMe subscales predicted by BFAS aspects). SoMe subscales predicted by BFAS aspects).

Component Component

SoMe scale Questioning/learning Responsibility BFAS aspect Questioning/learning Responsibility

Creativity 0.58 0.00 O2 Openness 0.87 0.05

Knowledge 0.48 0.23 O1 Intellect 0.55 0.37
Tradition 0.47 0.10 E2 Assertiveness 0.40 0.52
Unison with nature 0.43 0.09 C2 Orderliness 0.32 0.70
Self-knowledge 0.38 0.20 C1 Industriousness 0.06 0.64
Practicality 0.37 0.26 A1 Compassion 0.21 0.63
Social commitment 0.37 0.09 E1 Enthusiasm 0.14 0.62
Challenge 0.36 0.23 A2 Politeness 0.18 0.31
Development 0.34 0.33 N2 Withdrawal 0.17 0.27
Individualism 0.33 0.07 N1 Volatility 0.01 0.24
Freedom 0.27 0.07
Explicit religiosity 0.13 0.05 Note: All loadings greater than or equal to 0.35 are set in
Spirituality 0.07 0.06 bold font.
Health 0.06 0.45
Care 0.05 0.44 likelihood of finding meaning in particular avenues
Power 0.28 0.39
of life. Given the current findings, this would suggest
Community 0.04 0.38
Achievement 0.08 0.35 that people with high levels of openness, intellect, and
Generativity 0.13 0.35 assertiveness are more likely to derive meaning through
Fun 0.04 0.34 creative and non-traditional means as well as through
Morality 0.14 0.33 questioning and learning, whereas those with high
Reason 0.21 0.31
Attentiveness 0.13 0.30
levels of orderliness, industriousness, compassion, and
Harmony 0.28 0.28 enthusiasm are more likely to find meaning through a
Love 0.07 0.27 focus on work, family, and friends.
Wellness 0.01 0.06 The emergence of dimensions of life meaning
Note: All loadings greater than or equal to 0.35 are set in
involving questioning and learning on the one hand,
bold font. and responsibility on the other, may reflect the sample
composition. University students may be particularly
likely to organize their engagement with meaning
However, given that the BFAS accounted for almost a according to these two dimensions. At the same time,
quarter of the overall variance in the SoMe, we instead these two higher-order components share a conceptual
propose that the Big Five are not ideal predictors of the similarity with the proposed higher-order personality
SoMe’s standard scale dimensions (i.e. its underlying dimensions of stability and plasticity. DeYoung (2006;
component structure). Therefore, examining associa- DeYoung, Peterson, & Higgins, 2002) has argued that
tions between the Big Five and the well-established the ways in which people extract meaning from a
underlying dimensions of the SoMe does not appear to complex universe can be understood according to a
be beneficial in terms of furthering our understanding two-dimensional scheme that corresponds to higher-
about the relation between personality traits and order dimensions of the Big Five: stability (low
sources of meaning in life. Investigating more fine- Neuroticism, high Agreeableness, and high
grained aspects of life meaning and personality allows Conscientiousness), similar to responsibility, involves
for a deeper understanding of the associations between adherence to existing cultural forms; plasticity (high
personality and the ways in which people derive Extraversion, high Openness to Experience) involves
meaning in their lives. willingness to explore new forms.
The emergence of two novel components (ques- One difference is the association between
tioning/learning and responsibility) from the predicted Extraversion and responsibility in this study, given
solution (i.e. the portion of variance in the SoMe that that Extraversion is not generally believed to relate to
is predictable from the BFAS; Table 3) further suggests stability (but see DeYoung et al., 2002). A possible
that the Big Five aspects cannot accurately predict the explanation for this might involve Schnell and Becker’s
established dimensions of the SoMe; rather, personal- (2006) finding that Extraversion/Openness showed a
ity traits were related to certain sources of meaning direct association with their overall meaningfulness
within these dimensions that combined to form the two scale. They hypothesized that extraverted and open
novel components that emerged in our predicted people are more likely to find meaning regardless of
solution. One interpretation of these results is that the ways in which they find meaning, which may
personality traits are associated with a greater explain why Extraversion shows associations to both
40 K.M. Lavigne et al. 7
0.6

e
Lo u Co H
Ca
0.4

H Po
e
t G
c
o

e
A
M

So S h
Re

D
a
A

C
0.2

Pr

n
Responsibility

K
Tr

n
e

U
Fr
0

In
Sp

W
Ex

Cr
-0.2

-0.4

-0.6
-0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6
Questioning/Learning

Figure 1. Plot of component loadings for predicted solution (PCA on SoMe subscales predicted by BFAS aspects) displayed in
Table 3. Notes: Ac ¼ Achievement, At ¼ Attentiveness, Ca ¼ Care, Ch ¼ Challenge, Co ¼ Community, Cr ¼ Creativity,
De ¼ Development, Ex ¼ Explicit Religiosity, Fr ¼ Freedom, Fu ¼ Fun, Ge ¼ Generativity, Ha ¼ Harmony, He ¼ Health,
In ¼ Individualism, Kn ¼ Knowledge, Lo ¼ Love, Mo ¼ Morality, Po ¼ Power, Pr ¼ Practicality, Re ¼ Reason, Se ¼ Self-
Knowledge, So ¼ Social Commitment, Sp ¼ Spirituality, Tr ¼ Tradition, Un ¼ Unison with Nature, and We ¼ Wellness.

1
ss
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pa m
es

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io

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es
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C1

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ith
W

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2
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-1
-1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Questioning/Learning

Figure 2. Plot of predictor loadings for predicted solution (PCA on SoMe subscales predicted by BFAS aspects) displayed in
Table 4.
Notes: A ¼ Agreeableness, C ¼ Conscientiousness, E ¼ Extraversion, N ¼ Neuroticism, and O ¼ Openness-to-Experience.

components that emerged from the predicted solution investigating the convergent and discriminant validity
in the current set of results. Future research using of the SoMe may be required to fully discount this
demographically heterogeneous samples will be neces- alternative interpretation of the results.
sary to determine whether our obtained two- The agreement between the overall and residual
component solution is a consequence of our student solutions (Tables 2 and 5, respectively) and the
sample or reflects a deeper structure. previously proposed dimensional structure of the
Another interpretation of the reported results is SoMe (proposed by Schnell & Becker, 2006, and
that some SoMe items may be more accurate measures revised by Schnell, 2009) is striking, particularly in
of personality than they are of meaning in life, which light of the fact that the original study was carried out
would lead to these items being well-predicted by the on a German sample of 60% students with a mean age
BFAS relative to the SoMe items that more accurately of 31.7 (the current Canadian sample is 100% students,
measure meaning in life. Although such an interpreta- with a mean age of 23.6). However, some minor
tion may be valid, it is not strongly supported by differences were detectable, such as development, self-
comparison of the items within the SoMe subscales knowledge, and creativity being more strongly related
that were and were not strongly predicted from the to the Horizontal Self-transcendence component than
BFAS (Tables 3 and 5). However, future studies the Self-actualization component (the opposite is the
8 The Journal of Positive Psychology 41

Table 5. Component loadings for residual solution (PCA on SoMe subscales not predicted by BFAS aspects).

Component

Horizontal Self- Well-being Vertical

SoMe scale self-transcendence actualization Order and relatedness self-transcendence

Social commitment 0.70 0.18 0.04 0.01 0.06

Unison with nature 0.67 0.15 0.07 0.16 0.01
Knowledge 0.31 0.41 0.10 0.05 0.12
Harmony 0.48 0.33 0.11 0.18 0.27
Self-knowledge 0.23 0.54 0.04 0.03 0.22
Development 0.22 0.59 0.20 0.04 0.11
Creativity 0.19 0.27 0.10 0.20 0.08
Health 0.42 0.06 0.16 0.02 0.15
Generativity 0.25 0.44 0.29 0.15 0.36
Individualism 0.02 0.73 0.08 0.20 0.10
Freedom 0.02 0.64 0.14 0.13 0.10
Power 0.00 0.39 0.24 0.17 0.06
Challenge 0.09 0.40 0.03 0.41 0.12
Wellness 0.29 0.15 0.07 0.59 0.06
Reason 0.09 0.09 0.65 0.05 0.01
Practicality 0.10 0.13 0.55 0.27 0.05
Achievement 0.15 0.38 0.52 0.04 0.04
Morality 0.01 0.15 0.49 0.14 0.41
Fun 0.03 0.18 0.27 0.58 0.02
Community 0.24 0.01 0.33 0.41 0.02
Care 0.18 0.10 0.27 0.31 0.11
Love 0.14 0.01 0.04 0.58 0.22
Spirituality 0.05 0.15 0.18 0.16 0.80
Explicit religiosity 0.01 0.04 0.12 0.06 0.79
Tradition 0.09 0.19 0.22 0.16 0.52
Attentiveness 0.25 0.30 0.00 0.43 0.46

Notes: All loadings greater than or equal to 0.40 are set in bold font.
Order of components changed to correspond to Table 2 to facilitate comparison (is not ordered by amount of variance
accounted for).

case for the originally reported SoMe dimensions). achieve, and may, therefore, not be generalizable to
Possible sources of these changes include a heightened other populations.
importance placed on self-exploration, societal and
environmental issues (e.g. development, self-knowl-
edge, and social commitment) for personal growth in
Conclusions
younger students, and/or general cultural/demographic
differences. Our results provide new insight into the dimensions of
Some limitations of this study include the use of meaning that can be predicted by the Big Five aspects,
self-report questionnaires and our reliance on a student suggesting that grouping the SoMe into its established
sample. Self-report measures are commonly used when primary dimensions is not optimal for understanding
investigating both personality and life meaning. The how personality is associated with the ways in which
measures included in this study go beyond traditional people find a sense of meaning in their lives. Rather,
measures used in the field, in that they assess a variety personality traits were found to associate with combi-
of sources of life meaning as well as lower-level aspects nations of sources of meaning from several of the
of the Big Five personality traits, allowing for a deeper primary dimensions, suggesting that personality traits
understanding of the association between personality are associated with variations in domains used to
traits and sources of meaning in life. With regard to the derive meaning in life. Specifically, we found that
student sample used in the current study, our results people who are open and assertive appear to derive
replicated Schnell and Becker’s (2006) findings, which meaning from questioning, learning, and challenging
were based on an older German sample that was not tradition, whereas people who are conscientious,
entirely comprised of university students. However, the extraverted and compassionate appear to find life
components that emerged from the predicted solution meaning from success at work, good health, and a
(questioning/learning and responsibility) might be sense of family. By carrying out PCA on the predicted
reliant on our sample’s motivations to learn and scores resulting from a multivariate multiple
42 K.M. Lavigne et al. 9

regression, CPCA ensures that components (in the multivariate analysis. Personality & Individual
predicted solution) are optimized to be based exclu- Differences, 45, 703–708.
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explained by the predictor variables. This method of principal component analysis with external information on
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Hunter, M.A., & Takane, Y. (2002). Constrained principal
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Appendix

Table A1. Twenty six sources of meaning of the SoMe (Schnell, 2009; Schnell & Becker, 2006).

Dimension/scale Description

Self-transcendence
Vertical Self-transcendence
Explicit religiosity Religion and faith
Spirituality Connection with a higher reality
Horizontal Self-transcendence
Unison with nature Harmony and unity with nature
Social commitment Commitment for justice, public welfare, or human rights
Generativity Doing or creating things valued beyond one’s death
Care Consideration, forethought, helpfulness
Health Healthiness, fitness, wholesome nutrition
Self-actualization
Individualism Independence and realization of potentials
Challenge Endeavour, adventure, risk
Power Power, fight, dominance
Development Personal growth, determination, goal attainment
Freedom Autonomy, liberty, self-rule
Knowledge Questioning, keeping informed, trying to understand
Achievement Competence, skill, success
Creativity Fantasy, aesthetic sense, originality
Self-knowledge Confrontation with and analysis of oneself
Order
Reason Rationality and logic
Morality Values and rules
Tradition Conservation, order, holding onto the well-established
Practicality Pragmatism and realism
Well-being and Relatedness
Fun Humor and enjoyment
Wellness Pleasure and hedonism
Harmony Balance and accord with oneself and others
Attentiveness Awareness, continuity, ritualization
Love Romanticism and intimacy
Community Close contacts and friendship, sense of family