| dc.description.abstract | Existential philosophy has long asserted human life serves a purpose beyond simple existence and, further, that humans have a fundamental need to seek and understand this purpose. Humans are undeniably meaning seekers, consistently attempting to make sense of their lives and the world around them, but what happens when meaning is found? Investigations have focused on how, why, and where people seek meaning in life. Luckily, people are adept at finding meaning in various domains. Because these searches are not fruitless, it becomes relevant to question how finding meaning may affect behavior and preferences. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of experiencing meaning on future choices. In this investigation, participants viewed a series of images before responding to a writing prompt of their choice. Participants who viewed high meaning images for a longer duration reported more desire to engage with a high versus low-meaning prompt. Additionally, participants who viewed high meaning images for longer duration expressed feelings of inspiration which were connected with desire to engage with a meaningful writing prompt. Together these findings suggest that experiencing a sense of meaning influences people to continue engaging with meaningful targets by decreasing interest in low meaning stimuli and increasing feelings of inspiration. Thus the experience of meaning was not satiating, instead motivating people to further seek meaningful experiences. | en |
