ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a theoretical foundation based on the developmental psychology literature concerning the sense of purpose and formation of identities. Purpose in life is defined as a long-term and generalized goal that is personally meaningful and linked to the world at large. Purpose is conceptually distinguished from meaning and identity to show how affluence can create cross-purposes in people’s lives. Meaning refers to how people understand the world around them at the most general level and what significance they believe they have in that world. Purpose in life is a subset of meaning that is related to how and why people contribute to their world. Identity is also a subset of meaning, involving how people consolidate meaning and purpose within the roles and statuses they choose to enact. Adaptations to identity societies are then modeled using the identity–purpose lens, which depicts how the choices people make can differ in terms of how much they can contribute to, or undermine, identity commitments based on long-term purposes—purposes that are firmly rooted in self-fulfillment while contributing to larger-than-self accomplishments. The paradoxical relationship between happiness and purpose is examined to illustrate the complexities people experience in identity societies.
