IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ariqol/v12y2017i1d10.1007_s11482-016-9448-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

More Education, More Purpose in Life? A Comparison of Purpose Across Adults with Different Levels of Education

Author

Listed:
  • Rachel Sumner

    (Cornell University)

Abstract

There is an abundance of research demonstrating the benefits associated with having a sense of purpose in life, but much of this work utilizes academic (high school or college students) or well-educated adult samples. This study compared adults who graduated from college to adults with no or some college experience on a number of dimensions related to purpose development, including: the process of exploration (purpose pathway), overall level of purpose, and the content of one’s purpose (purpose orientation). The relationship between purpose and psychological assets such as agency and subjective well-being was also compared across groups. Results demonstrated that there were no differences by education level with regard to overall level of purpose or one’s purpose pathways, but education predicted purpose orientation and agency, even when controlling for purpose. The lack of difference in purpose between adults with different levels of education bodes well for the field, which has relied heavily on college student samples. Implications for existing and future research on purpose in life are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Rachel Sumner, 2017. "More Education, More Purpose in Life? A Comparison of Purpose Across Adults with Different Levels of Education," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 12(1), pages 17-34, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ariqol:v:12:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11482-016-9448-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s11482-016-9448-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11482-016-9448-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11482-016-9448-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anthony Burrow & Rachel Sumner & Anthony Ong, 2014. "Perceived Change in Life Satisfaction and Daily Negative Affect: The Moderating Role of Purpose in Life," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 579-592, June.
    2. Peterson, Robert A, 2001. "On the Use of College Students in Social Science Research: Insights from a Second-Order Meta-analysis," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 28(3), pages 450-461, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pengji Wang & Adrian T. H. Kuah & Qinye Lu & Caroline Wong & K. Thirumaran & Emmanuel Adegbite & Wesley Kendall, 2021. "The impact of value perceptions on purchase intention of sustainable luxury brands in China and the UK," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(3), pages 325-346, May.
    2. Kyriaki Remoundou & Drichoutis Andreas & Phoebe Koundouri, 2010. "Warm glow in charitable auctions: Are the WEIRDos driving the results?," DEOS Working Papers 1028, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    3. Krawczyk, Michał & Tyrowicz, Joanna & Kukla-Gryz, Anna & Hardy, Wojciech, 2015. "“Piracy is not theft!” Is it just students who think so?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 32-39.
    4. Christoph Bühren & Thorben C. Kundt, 2013. "Worker or Shirker – Who Evades More Taxes? A Real Effort Experiment," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201326, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    5. Valentin Magnon & Guillaume T. Vallet & Frédéric Dutheil & Catherine Auxiette, 2021. "Sedentary Lifestyle Matters as Past Sedentariness, Not Current Sedentariness, Predicts Cognitive Inhibition Performance among College Students: An Exploratory Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-15, July.
    6. Fischer, Caroline, 2020. "Incentives can't buy me knowledge: The missing effects of appreciation and aligned performance appraisals on knowledge sharing of public employees," OSF Preprints u8hfy, Center for Open Science.
    7. Raju, Sekar & Rajagopal, Priyali & Murdock, Mitchel R., 2021. "The moderating effects of prior trust on consumer responses to firm failures," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 24-37.
    8. Brady, Patrick Q. & Nobles, Matt R. & Bouffard, Leana A., 2017. "Are college students really at a higher risk for stalking?: Exploring the generalizability of student samples in victimization research," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 12-21.
    9. Roux, Elyette & Tafani, Eric & Vigneron, Franck, 2017. "Values associated with luxury brand consumption and the role of gender," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 102-113.
    10. Bernard Dubois & Sandor Czellar & Gilles Laurent, 2005. "Consumer Segments Based on Attitudes Toward Luxury: Empirical Evidence from Twenty Countries," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 115-128, April.
    11. Francisco J. Conejo & Lawrence F. Cunningham & Clifford E. Young, 2020. "Revisiting the Brand Luxury Index: new empirical evidence and future directions," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(1), pages 108-122, January.
    12. Belot, Michele & Duch, Raymond & Miller, Luis, 2015. "A comprehensive comparison of students and non-students in classic experimental games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 26-33.
    13. Verhagen, Tibert & Meents, Selmar, 2007. "A Framework for Developing Semantic Differentials in IS research: Assessing the Meaning of Electronic Marketplace Quality (EMQ)," Serie Research Memoranda 0016, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    14. Freling, Traci H. & Vincent, Leslie H. & Henard, David H., 2014. "When not to accentuate the positive: Re-examining valence effects in attribute framing," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 95-109.
    15. Maryam Barkhordari & Zahra Nourollah & Hoda Mashayekhi & Yoosof Mashayekhi & Mohammad S. Ahangar, 2017. "Factors influencing adoption of e-payment systems: an empirical study on Iranian customers," Information Systems and e-Business Management, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 89-116, February.
    16. Kim, Yeolib & Kim, Seung Hyun & Peterson, Robert A. & Choi, Jeonghye, 2023. "Privacy concern and its consequences: A meta-analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    17. Reginald Litz & Nick Turner, 2013. "Sins of the Father’s Firm: Exploring Responses to Inherited Ethical Dilemmas in Family Business," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 113(2), pages 297-315, March.
    18. Trafimow, David & Hyman, Michael R. & Kostyk, Alena, 2020. "The (im)precision of scholarly consumer behavior research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 93-101.
    19. Vieira, Valter Afonso & Rafael, Diego Nogueira & Agnihotri, Raj, 2022. "Augmented reality generalizations: A meta-analytical review on consumer-related outcomes and the mediating role of hedonic and utilitarian values," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 170-184.
    20. Jae-Eun Kim & Kim Johnson, 2013. "The Impact of Moral Emotions on Cause-Related Marketing Campaigns: A Cross-Cultural Examination," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 112(1), pages 79-90, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:ariqol:v:12:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11482-016-9448-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.