Validation of the German version of the meaning in life measure

Abstract

Despite growing interest in meaning in life as a core construct of eudaimonic well-being, there is a lack of brief and validated self-report scales in the German language. We translated the Meaning in Life Measure (MILM) to German and examined its psychometric properties in two studies. The MILM is an 8-item self-report instrument that assesses the experience of meaning in life (MILM-E) and reflectivity about meaning in life (MILM-R) with two subscales. In Study 1 ( N  = 1,189), we confirmed that the German MILM-E and MILM-R load on two positively correlated latent factors, replicating the two-factor structure of the original English measure. In Study 2 we conducted a follow-up assessment ( N  = 300) nine months later, again confirming the fit of the two-factor structure. Additionally, we examined the nomological network of the MILM by relating both subscales to well-being, self-efficacy, satisfaction with life, preference for intuition and deliberation, rumination, and religiosity/spirituality. All hypotheses regarding the direction of associations were pre-registered. As expected, the MILM-E demonstrated strong correlations with concurrent meaning in life measures ( r  > .60) and substantial positive correlations with well-being indicators. The MILM-R correlated positively with search for meaning and rumination but, contrary to our expectations, was not significantly associated with well-being measures. Test-retest correlations over nine months indicated a high temporal rank-order stability of both subscales (MILM-E: r  = .64; MILM-R: r  = .59).