Meaning in Life as a Predictor of Optimism: How Parents Mattering Matters to Asian Americans and European Americans

Research on meaning in life has gained momentum in the past decade (Schlegel & Hicks, 2017). Greater meaning in life has been found to be related to a wide range of positive adjustment outcomes, including satisfaction with life, subjective happiness, positive affect, and psychological well-being (Park, 2010). Although research on the relationship between meaning in life and adjustment outcomes continues to grow, the relationship between meaning in life and other positive psychological processes or constructs, such as optimism, is unclear. Additionally, potential ethnocultural differences in meaning in life and its relation to optimism, as also been largely unexamined. The present study sought to examine the relationship between meaning in life (viz., presence and searching) and optimism between Asian American and European American college students. Furthermore, we examined whether parents mattering (i.e., importance of parents` well-being) would add to the prediction of optimism and interact with meaning in life dimensions to further predict optimism, beyond main effects. Findings indicated that meaning in life accounted for a significant amount of variance in optimism for both groups, and while Presence × Parents Mattering was a significant predictor of optimism for European Americans, Searching × Parents Mattering was a significant predictor of optimism for Asian Americans. Implications for continued research on meaning in life, and the need to focus on cultural and contextual factors are discussed.