Evaluating meaning in life and its contributors in athletic and non-athletic college students

Abstract

Meaning in life is a theoretically driven variable with ramifications to physical and mental health and well-being in the population. There is unfortunately a lack of investigations present in the literature into the applicability of current theories of meaning in life in specialized groups such as athletes to determine if those models fit the athletic population. One such theory, the Meaning Maintenance Model discusses four informers of an individual’s meaning in life: self-esteem, closure, social connectedness, and symbolic immortality. Given the unique opportunities presented to athletes in each of these four indicators through their participation in sport, we hypothesized that these factors will more strongly contribute to meaning in life in athletes than non-athletes and that these variables explain one’s sense of meaning in life better in athletes than non-athletes. We collected subjective data pertaining to meaning in life, self-esteem, need for closure, social connectedness, and symbolic immortality from a sample of collegiate athletes and non-athletes. While there was limited evidence for group differences amongst the measured contributors of meaning in life and in subjective levels of meaning in life, itself, we did find evidence suggesting that our models explained more variance for non-athletes than for athletes, counter to expectations. It is suggested that athletes draw more of their sense of meaning from sources not presented in the Meaning Maintenance Model. Such results open the door for novel indicators to be investigated, such as potential for personal development, athletic success, or strength of social identity, and potentially utilized to bolster meaning-in-life in this unique population which can enhance well-being.