Meaning in life and care for the environment: bridging the actions for addressing ecological issues and enhancing residential quality

This article discusses the role of meaning in life (meaningfulness and crisis of meaning) and various sources of meaning in predicting and explaining people's commitment toward enhancing the environmental quality at both the global (ecological) and local (residential) levels. An online questionnaire, including measures of meaningfulness, crisis of meaning, and multiple sources of meaning from the Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life Questionnaire, together with measures of proenvironmental behaviors and residential engagement (i.e., actions that improve the quality of one's residential environment), was administered to 199 participants. Significant associations were found between meaningfulness, various sources of meaning, and both types of behavioral commitment. Moreover, meaningfulness revealed to be a direct predictor of the same behaviors over and above other well-known predictors, such as general pro-environmental attitudes and place attachment. Implications for research and application in residential as well as pro-environmental behaviors are discussed as well.