| Abstract | Meaning in life (MIL) is essential for well-being and is strongly related to relationship satisfaction and commitment. Research has shown that individuals who maintain high quality relationships report greater meaning, whereas social rejection has been shown to stir feelings of meaninglessness. Additionally, close relationships act as existential buffers, providing coherence, purpose, and significance to our lives. Thus, the purpose of this research was to examine whether relationship-specific MIL mediates the relationship between death-related thoughts and relationship well-being. Specifically, in Study 1, participants completed measures of death-thought accessibility (DTA), relationship-specific MIL, and partner satisfaction and commitment. The results showed that individuals high in DTA derived greater MIL from relationships and, in turn, reported greater satisfaction and commitment to their partners. In order to more deeply examine the role of MIL, a mortality salience (MS) manipulation was used for Study 2. That is, participants were randomly assigned to either a MS or control condition, followed by measures of MIL, relationship satisfaction, and commitment. Similar to Study 1, the results of Study 2 revealed that individuals in the MS condition reported greater MIL, which was associated with greater relationship benefiting outcomes. |
