Finding Meaning

"This book offers an academic inquiry on contemporary processes of the search for meaning in life in a postmodern context with a focus on the Israeli cultural scene. Constructing or finding meaning in life is considered to be fundamental in human life (Batthyany & Russo-Netzer, 2014; Frankl, 1963; George & Park, 2016; Mayseless & Keren, 2014; Russo-Netzer, Schulenberg & Batthyany, 2016; Russo-Netzer, 2018; Steger, 2012; Wong, 2012). Such meaning reflects individuals' search to understand and organize their experience in a coherent manner, achieve a sense of their own worth and place (e.g., an identity and a sense of belonging) and recognize the things that matter to them (e.g., have purpose in life). When such meaning in life is adopted, individuals often feel that their life transcends their transitory existence and hence matters (George & Park, 2016). Viewed as a uniquely human quality (Emmons, 2003; Frankl, 1963) which enables people to interpret and consolidate their experience in the world (Steger, 2009), meaning has gained a growing degree of scientific attention within the psychological field. For example, several components of meaning have been identified (George & Park 2016; Martela & Steger 2016), the distinction between search for meaning and having meaning in life has been delineated (e.g., Steger et al., 2008) and the importance and centrality of meaning in life to individuals' wellbeing and functioning has been established (e.g., King et al. 2006; Park, 2010; Steger 2012). The construal of meaning in life by individuals is a psychological process yet it is intimately linked to the cultural context and historical period in which individuals live (Leung, Chiu, & Hong, 2011; Hicks & Routledge, 2013). The social and cultural contexts often offer and sometimes impose narratives, expectations, norms and values that individuals can align with in their search for coherence, value and purpose (Hicks & Routledge, 2013). Processes of globalization and neo-humanism challenge the meaning and security individuals find in their national or religious identity. Such processes appear to delegitimize the national and patriotic bases which grant a sense of meaning as part of a collective, advocating instead an individualistic capitalistic perspective together with the virtue of seeing oneself as a citizen of the world (Navarro, 2007; Soederberg, Menz & Cerny, 2005; Yeates, 2002)"--