While these soul-searching types of questions are in some shape or form around for people a lot of the time, as the new year approaches, a lot of us add another – where do I want to go or grow during the next rotation around the sun? While these questions have long been the topics of various philosophers throughout the ages, more recently psychologists have applied the scientific method to understanding what these topics are and how people live them out in their lives.
Personally, I’ve devoted my professional life to better understanding these concepts in my applied work as a vocational psychologist and want to introduce you to them today. Let’s get started with a story…
My work on these subjects didn’t start until one day when I was in my first master’s program and another student asked my professor what he studied in his empirical research lab. He said “purpose” and went on to explain what that meant… in that moment, something inside of me clicked at my very core and the rest of the class felt like I was both ultra-aware and simultaneously swimming through dimly-lit waters. Despite having a bachelor’s degree in psychology, no one had every told me I could study something like this! I rushed to my professor’s office hours to grill him on exactly what this fascinating “purpose” research really meant!
By the next week’s office hours, I had read every one of his published publications and had ordered the seminal book “Man’s Search for Meaning ” (Frankl, 1985). When I came back to his office bursting at the seams with the news of my robust reading week and my plans to continue educating myself at a breakneck speed, my professor gave me a look that I now think entailed him trying to discern if he should be honored or consider looking into a restraining order. I got lucky that he gave this overly-eager student a chance – he even wrote me one of my referral letter’s that got me into my PhD program and I have been in contact with him now a few times throughout the years.
I highly recommend it by the way (the book, not scaring your professor with your enthusiasm).
I still feel the sparks that fueled that initial passion for purpose, in part because of what is an uncommon finding in psychology.
In a field where almost every answer on every quiz in psychology is “it depends,” when you ask people if they want a meaningful life the answer they give is as close to a universal truth as we get – YES.
Meaning and purpose can also be tied to such a large plethora of people, jobs, and circumstances that I’m on board with what the author of Man’s Search for Meaning posited while writing his manuscript while surviving a series of Nazi internment camps; the “will-for-meaning” is a fundamental human need and when someone knows their “why” for living, they can find a way to bear almost any “how.”
A rose by any other name? Definitions - Fast forward to today, I’ve been doing meaning-related research now for about 9 years, and while positive psychology concepts such as these have become hotter and hotter topics to now see in both research and in the workplace. While related to one another, meaning, purpose, and calling are unique. Let’s dive into those differences!
First off, and most simple of these terms, the term meaning refers to the significance or value we give to something – or the sense we make of something or that it signifies to us (Pratt & Ashforth, 2003).
Because academics like to be crystal clear on exact terms, they also often make the distinction that this is different than meaningfulness or the amount of meaning someone experiences (Rosso, Dekas, & Wrzesniewski, 2010), although I don’t usually split those types of hairs when talking about meaning. One key aspect that I have found is helpful for people is to note is that the method people take of meaning-making can be both a thinking (i.e., cognitive) or feeling (i.e., affective) process, or any combo of those two, just depends on the person and circumstance. Hopefully this feels like a simple way to break down such an important matter.
Next up, the term purposeful work takes the idea of meaning and also applies a directionality or intentionality to a basic sense of meaning. You can think of it as the combination of doing something that matters with an emphasis on action – I’ve also personally liked to describe purposeful work as the antithesis of apathy (I know, I know… I’m such a poet sometimes). Purpose “propels a person forward” (Yeager, & Bundick, 2009) and has a sense of momentum to it – think of a busy hummingbird with it’s quickly moving wings, upon first glance it may look like it’s flight is aimless and it’s simply darting around; but if you watch for even a few minutes, you’ll see each movement is made in the pursuit of food or shelter!
Humans are not so different than the beautifully bejeweled hummingbird, we are always doing something in order to orientate towards achieving or attaining some sort of goal; it is just sometimes more complex and nuanced than the hummingbird to figure out what our own desired outcome might entail at times.
Now thirdly, and the most complex of these concepts to understand, is the idea of having a calling. It builds upon the first two ideas in that it includes a core aspect of entailing meaningful/purposeful work and also adds in another element of doing work for a “right” reason or in a way that enhances one’s community (i.e., prosocial impact). Finally, and the most controversial aspect of callings’ definition, are that a lot of the researchers and academics studying this topic describe some sort of “external force” (Dik & Duffy, 2009) or outside pull towards the specific work. The source of the caller is up for debate and likely depends on the person being calling, but common sources I’ve often heard in my time in the field are that the caller is “God” or a more secular need in society that a person feels they must fulfill.
Calling is Complex - Out of the 3 of these terms the one with the most complex definition is also the most intricate outcomes that researchers such as myself are still trying to parse out. While generally speaking it typically is associated with positive things, there is some initial research that indicates that callings aren’t always positive in all situations for all people…
While I feel that I’ve cut the convo off short already, it has been a long post already so I will stop there… As the People Science team keeps blogging, we’ll build on these basic definitions and explain more on the differences between them. For now, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to us via email (PeopleScience@iAlign.Work) – we love to hear from you!
And if you’d like help identifying what uniquely brings YOU purpose at work, check out the MyPurpose assessment!
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