Meaning in Life
I am curious to discover the ways that humans create and maintain meaningful conceptualizations of themselves and their social world. Why are people motivated to perceive themselves, and reality, as meaningful? How do people make sense of tragedy and suffering? What are enduring and resilient sources of meaning in life? Drawing from experimental, survey, and longitudinal data, one line of research seeks to better understand how people find, and defend, meaning in life. I cowrote a book on finding meaning in the midst of suffering.
Book
Van Tongeren, D. R., & Showalter Van Tongeren, S. A. (2020). The courage to suffer: A new clinical framework for life’s greatest crises. Templeton Foundation Press.
Selected Publications
Van Tongeren, D. R., Green, J. D., & Richmond, T. (2022). In the valley of the shadow of death: The existential benefits of imbuing life and death with meaning. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 14, 395–405.
Edwards, M., & Van Tongeren, D. R. (2020). Meaning mediates the association between suffering and well-being. Journal of Positive Psychology, 15, 722-733
Van Tongeren, D. R., DeWall, C. N., Green, J. D., Cairo, A. H., Davis, D. E., & Hook, J. N. (2018). Self-regulation facilitates meaning in life. Review of General Psychology, 22, 95-106.
Van Tongeren, D. R., & Green, J. D. (2018). Meaning and death-thought accessibility. British Journal of Social Psychology, 57, 230-239.
Van Tongeren, D. R., Hill, P. C., Krause, N., Ironson, G. H., & Pargament, K. I. (2017). The mediating role of meaning in the association between stress and health. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 51, 775-781.
Van Tongeren, D. R., Pennington, A., McIntosh, D. N., Newton, A. T., Green, J. D., Davis, D. E., & Hook, J. N. (2017). Where, o death, is thy sting?: The meaning-providing function of beliefs in literal immortality. Mental Health, Religion, and Culture, 20, 413-427.
Van Tongeren, D. R., Green, J. D., Davis, D. E., Hook, J. N., & Hulsey, T. L. (2016). Prosociality enhances meaning in life. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 11, 225-236.
Van Tongeren, D. R., Green, J. D., Hook, J. N., Davis, D. E., Davis, J. L., & Ramos, M. (2015). Forgiveness increases meaning in life. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 6, 47-55.
Van Tongeren, D. R., & Green, J. D. (2010). Combating meaninglessness: On the automatic defense of meaning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 1372-1384.
Selected Relevant Grant Funding
The John Templeton Foundation (#62948). Spiritual Yearning as a Psychological Construct: Associations with Spiritual Struggles and Existential Growth. Role: Principal Investigator. $509,623.
John Templeton Foundation (#44040), Earth as School: Finding Meaning, Relating to God, and Experiencing Growth After a Natural Disaster. Role: Co-Investigator (PI Jamie Aten). $1,887,209. 2015-2018. 2015-2018.
John Templeton Foundation (#40136), Making and Defending Meaning: Understanding and Reducing Tension between Scientific and Religious Meaning Systems. Role: Principal Investigator. $79,902. 2013-2015. 2013-2015.