Meaningful (vs. meaningless)
This belief concerns value in the world. On the one hand, most things matter and have worth. On the other, most things are pointless. What “mattering” means is not specified.
Meaningful world belief is different from the familiar positive psychology construct called “meaning in life“, which is about feeling that you have a life purpose or are seeking one. Meaningful is about how easy it is to find things that truly matter.
So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
— King Solomon, Ecclesiastes 2:27, circa 300 B.C.E.
Seeing the world as Meaningful is an important part of the big-three primal Enticing. It appears difficult to see the world as a fairly meaningless place and maintain positive mental health outcomes.
Out of all primals, Meaningful world belief is emerging as one of the most important to study, because it is tied to being kind in several different ways. For example, low Meaningful world belief is a primal especially related to “dark” personality traits—generally, the tendency to put oneself first at the expense of others.
Nothing is without meaning.
— Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children, 2010
In a groundbreaking series of seven studies surveying a total of over 2,000 people, research led by Daniel Snook at the Florida Gulf Coast University and published in 2026 found that low Meaningful was consistently and most related to violent extremism intentions and terrorism. For example, imprisoned Kazakhstani jihadist terrorists scored lower on Meaningful than those who had committed nonterrorist violent acts. For them, a meaningless world perhaps seemed easier to destroy.
The most important finding of Dr. Snook’s research, however, was that Meaningful world belief could be increased, which led to lower violent extremism. In an experiment, a sample of people who endorsed the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection took pictures and journaled about things they found meaningful for ten days–just 10 minutes per day. After the experiment, their Meaningful scores increased, and their violent extremism scores decreased. You can read a summary in this Psychology Today article.
So why is this such a big deal?
This is the first time researchers have been able to successfully change a primal, which resulted in a change in a theorized outcome. If we can design further viable interventions that make targeted changes to primals, we can potentially unlock a whole new way to address some of the most difficult problems our world faces, things like violent extremism, depression, and political polarization.
Everything is a waste of time.
— Twitter post, 2012
This continues to be a highly active area of research around the world, and more research remains to be done.
Photo: Jan Mey/Midjourney
