Affect, Meaning and Quality of Life

Research on quality of life in sociology is largely focused on a narrow range of dimensions including affect, happiness and satisfaction. It largely avoids a concern with the meanings that provide people with the purpose, significance, validity and coherence that are a basis of social relationships and social integration. Evidence is presented that people experience lowered affect in some challenging and stressful situations that simultaneously generate meanings that enhance the quality of their lives, and that experiences of high affect along with impoverished meanings produce low quality of life. This strongly suggests that meaning may be a more fundamental dimension of life quality than is affect. Meanings may also enhance the quality of life by motivating people's involvement in activities that promote social integration and the quality of social relationships. Sociologists should work to further develop the theoretical and empirical basis of quality of life so that it more fully includes dimensions that reflect the meanings that provide purpose and significance in people's lives.