The pursuit of happiness and meaning are two of our most central motivations in life. A wealth of research in positive psychology suggests that happiness and meaning ar...

Parents often report that they are very happy they had children, but parents who are living with children usually score very low on measures of happiness. It seems that raising children can decrease happiness but increase meaning.

Similarly, revolutionaries often suffer through ye...

In recent years, a number of studies have further supported the differences between happiness and meaning.  Quite predictably, factors such as feeling connected to others, feeling productive, and not being alone or bored contributed to both happiness and meaning.

Some differences:

It seems that happiness has more to do with having your needs satisfied, getting what you want, and feeling good, whereas meaning is more related to uniquely human activities such as developing a personal identity, expressing the self, and consciously integrating one’s pa...

Meaning has at least two major components: the cognitive processing component involves making sense and integrating experiences, and a purpose component, which is more motivation...

 While happiness may make us feel good in the moment, the avoidance of negative thoughts and feelings may stunt personal development over time. After all, personal development often requires experiencing a full range of emotions. There is also emerging research that over time, happiness is associ...

The two measures of meaning (cognitive processing and purpose) were positively associated with most of the measures of adaptation. In particular, cognitive processing was very strongly related to grit (...

Years of research on the psychology of well-being have demonstrated that often human beings are happiest when they are engaged in meaningful pursuits and virtuous activities.

A further investigation of the similarities and differences between happiness and meaning can contribute substantial...