A recent study found that meaning in life (MIL) mediated the relationship between COVID-19 stress and depressive symptoms. Yu et al. (2020) conducted a study with 425 Chinese university students and found a reciprocal impact between higher levels of MIL and positive mental health during the COVID-19 epidemic. This cross-sectional study aims to investigate how MIL is associated with positive attitudes towards COVID-19 epidemic among youth in Hong Kong, which further increases their wellbeing.
There were three hypotheses: 1) Higher levels of overall MIL significantly predicted more positive attitudes towards COVID-19 and then further predicted higher levels of wellbeing; 2) higher levels of presence of meaning significantly predicted more positive attitudes towards COVID-19 which further predicted higher levels of wellbeing; 3) higher levels of search for meaning significantly predicted more positive attitudes towards COVID-19 which further predicted higher levels of wellbeing.
There were 239 youth (70.3% females, 29.7% males, 45.2% full-time students, Mean(age) = 23.33, SD(age) = 4.03) who completed the online questionnaire in May 2020. The online questionnaire contained 10 sections and this study only focused on using the Chinese versions of the 10-item MIL Questionnaire and 8-item Flourishing Scale. Furthermore, a self-developed 7-item scale was used to measure respondents’ attitudes towards COVID-19.
Two sets of path analyses were conducted. Results showed that those with higher levels of overall MIL, presence of meaning, and search for meaning exhibited higher levels of wellbeing. Only overall MIL and presence of meaning significantly predicted more positive attitudes towards COVID-19 which further predicted higher levels of wellbeing. These findings confirmed the critical role of MIL as a protective factor of human wellbeing during individual and global crises. Through increasing the awareness of the presence of meaning can change one’s attitudes towards a crisis which can further improves wellbeing.