The role of existential meaning as a buffer against stress

An ethnically diverse sample of 143 college undergraduates was used to test the hypothesis that a sense of existential meaning buffers against the effect of stress on depression and hope. Spiritual meaning as measured by the Spiritual Meaning Scale and personal meaning as measured by the framework subscale from the Life Regard Index-Revised were significantly negatively correlated with depressive symptoms and positively correlated with hope. Spiritual meaning, but not personal meaning, moderated the relationship between stress and depression such that there was a strong relationship between depression and stress for individuals with low levels of spiritual meaning but no relationship between stress and depression for individuals with high levels of spiritual meaning. It appears that, though both spiritual and personal meaning are inversely related to depression and positively related to hope, only spiritual meaning moderates the relationship between daily stress and depression.