What Makes Life Meaningful? Combinations of Meaningful Commitments Among Nonreligious and Religious Americans

Abstract

Having a sense that one’s life is meaningful is related to, but distinct from, happiness, satisfaction, or living a moral life. Scholars across disciplines have investigated the role of religion in providing meaning or questioned whether religious decline prompts a crisis of meaninglessness. We use national survey data (2019, N = 1,326) to identify the overall patterns in what people find meaningful in general and how they spend time in activities understood as meaningful. We find five bundles of meaningful commitments: three focused on relationships, including one focused on a variety of family and friend relationships, one anchored by a relationship with a partner, and one anchored by a relationship with a child; one focused on ideals and lifestyle; and one that is less specialized but more prone to focus on religious commitment. We find three bundles of meaningful practices, the things people do in their daily lives that they understand as meaningful: one focused on relationships, one focused on ideals and lifestyle, and one that is less specialized but more prone to focus on religious commitments. We analyze how each bundle is associated with happiness and well-being, and how religious and nonreligious identification shape who embraces which bundle. In the conclusion, we discuss the benefits of our approach and suggest directions for future research.