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Applying an Allportian Trait Perspective to Sense of Purpose

Sense of purpose captures the extent to which one feels that they have personally meaningful goals and directions guiding them through life. While this construct has illustrated its ability to robustly predict desirable outcomes—ranging from happiness to mortality—the nature of this construct remain...

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Autor principal: Pfund, Gabrielle N.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10081294/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37193057
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10902-023-00644-4
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author Pfund, Gabrielle N.
author_facet Pfund, Gabrielle N.
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description Sense of purpose captures the extent to which one feels that they have personally meaningful goals and directions guiding them through life. While this construct has illustrated its ability to robustly predict desirable outcomes—ranging from happiness to mortality—the nature of this construct remains unclear. I begin by describing different definitions and measures from the purpose literature. From there, I review the debates suggesting that it should be classified as a component of identity development, a facet of well-being, or even a virtue. In the current paper, I argue that sense of purpose could be best served when qualified as a trait, building from the eight components of defining a trait from Allport’s (1931) paper: “What is a trait of personality?”. Using this classic piece as a framework, I integrate empirical and theoretical work on purpose and personality to dive into whether sense of purpose is a trait. I conclude by discussing the challenges and implications of bolstering sense of purpose if it is best classified as a trait.
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spelling pubmed-100812942023-04-07 Applying an Allportian Trait Perspective to Sense of Purpose Pfund, Gabrielle N. J Happiness Stud Review Article Sense of purpose captures the extent to which one feels that they have personally meaningful goals and directions guiding them through life. While this construct has illustrated its ability to robustly predict desirable outcomes—ranging from happiness to mortality—the nature of this construct remains unclear. I begin by describing different definitions and measures from the purpose literature. From there, I review the debates suggesting that it should be classified as a component of identity development, a facet of well-being, or even a virtue. In the current paper, I argue that sense of purpose could be best served when qualified as a trait, building from the eight components of defining a trait from Allport’s (1931) paper: “What is a trait of personality?”. Using this classic piece as a framework, I integrate empirical and theoretical work on purpose and personality to dive into whether sense of purpose is a trait. I conclude by discussing the challenges and implications of bolstering sense of purpose if it is best classified as a trait. Springer Netherlands 2023-04-07 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC10081294/ /pubmed/37193057 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10902-023-00644-4 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023, Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law. This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Review Article
Pfund, Gabrielle N.
Applying an Allportian Trait Perspective to Sense of Purpose
title Applying an Allportian Trait Perspective to Sense of Purpose
title_full Applying an Allportian Trait Perspective to Sense of Purpose
title_fullStr Applying an Allportian Trait Perspective to Sense of Purpose
title_full_unstemmed Applying an Allportian Trait Perspective to Sense of Purpose
title_short Applying an Allportian Trait Perspective to Sense of Purpose
title_sort applying an allportian trait perspective to sense of purpose
topic Review Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10081294/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37193057
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10902-023-00644-4
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