The Need for Meaning

Written on February 5, 2010. Written by .

I’ve often heard it said that to be truly happy you need to be a part of something bigger than yourself. In other words, limitless leisure and pleasure don’t necessarily lead to the ideal life. Those who have adopted this belief into their life philosophy try to find something more meaningful to give their life a feeling of purpose. Oftentimes pursuing meaningful work requires sacrifices of time and money that are never made up for in kind. Some individuals are even led into celibacy or death in their pursuit of meaning. It makes one wonder how evolution could have favored a gene that produces this kind of behavior.

To understand the evolutionary function of the need for meaning, we must first examine the things that we find meaningful. People seem to find meaning in things like: making the world a better place, saving lives, helping the poor, producing a great work of art, discovering a cure for cancer, and so on. People will also say that they find meaning in taking care of their family, but that is easy to understand evolutionarily and can be categorized as a separate type of meaning. Right now we want to understand the type of meaning that does not have a direct connection to replication. If we were to summarize all of these non-family related types of meaning in one sentence, we could say that meaning is achieved by contributing to the community by helping or influencing a large number of other people. Of course there are exceptions to this general statement. Some people just want to help animals, but that could be explained as a “misfiring” of a gene that primarily targeted humans as the recipients of aid. Or it could be that they have a hidden hope that by helping animals they can earn the praise of other people. It’s possible that this definition of meaning is incomplete, but it is surely a good approximation to the truth.

Now let’s put this meaning-gene to the test in a hypothetical hunter-gatherer tribe of about 100 people. Those who have the gene would become the tribal priests, craftsmen, and witchdoctors as a result of their perpetual desire to help others. Those without the gene would tend to mind their own business and focus on their personal matters like food and close relationships. At first glance it seems that the extra time to focus on one’s own problems would be advantageous. But humans are social creatures so the situation becomes more complex.

In a social group, individuals often look to others for advice on what to do. Sheep are famous for this because of their herding instinct. Humans don’t herd like sheep, but we still use the reactions of others to judge things like the danger of a situation or the character of a tribe-member. This causes a circular feedback loop that can produce group polarization for or against something. If the tribe becomes polarized against a particular individual, that individual could face ostracism, expulsion, or execution. All of these would likely bring about the end of that individual’s genetic lineage. Even if they already had children, those children would be much less likely to survive without a father in good standing within the tribe.

Now consider the effect of the meaning-gene. Those with the meaning gene are integral members of the community. The whole tribe relies on their skills and services. Those without the meaning-gene are only valued by a minority of the tribe. It would take a much bigger stimulus to cause the tribe to polarize against a tribe-member who has the meaning-gene. So if the loss in practical efficiency isn’t too large, possessing the meaning-gene could be an evolutionary advantage. So perhaps the need for meaning is just our genes’ way of telling us to integrate tightly into our community so that we decrease the chance of ostracism, expulsion, and execution.

Read more from the Psychology category. If you would like to leave a comment, click here: 4 Comments. or stay up to date with this post via RSS from your site.

Leave a Comment

If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Comments

4 Comments so far
  1. aspice February 10, 2010 1:21 am

    Very nice. I wrote up my thoughts here: http://aspice.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/the-desire-for-purpose-and-meaning/

    Helping animals is not necessarily misfiring of the meaning-gene, because humans and other animals can live in a symbiotic manner, such as when people use horses for transportation or dogs to herd other animals. Domestication can help humans and possibly integrate them into the larger “animal society”.

  2. spicen March 9, 2010 9:07 am

    Some x years ago, human society suddenly started to become social…so I would imagine that individuals with genes that would better integrate them into society would be socially selected for (a sort of social fitness). Hence they would more likely to survive.
    Contrary to aspice and cspice, I don’t think that helping animals (in this sense) has anything to do with domestication or misfiring genes, instead it’s about social/psychological background. It’s the nurture part of the equation. People advocating animal rights probably have had pleasant experiences with animals, or have been overly exposed to the concept of mistreatment of animals.

  3. dapperdan September 16, 2010 4:03 am

    I agree with your theory. I also think those with this meaning-gene are probably seen as attractive not just because because of the increased survival chance of being strongly tied to the community at large (and thus, their off-spring), but also on account of the “handicap principle” phenomenon: “loss in practical efficiency” due to squandering of one’s resources, yet not being too adversely affected by it, is seen as a sign of fitness that cannot be easily bluffed. Therefore, the meaning-gene may provide a two-fold evolutionary advantage by increasing one’s social viability and therefore survivability, while appearing attractive for that reason and for the reason that one who dedicates much resources on non-essential activity would probably be seen has having high genetic fitness.

  4. cspice September 17, 2010 9:32 am

    That’s a good observation. It seems that oftentimes adaptations have more than one apparent benefit. However, I don’t find the handicap argument as convincing as the argument I gave in the post simply because it is much more difficult to explain exactly how it could arise. Intuitively, you would expect sexual selection to favor those without handicaps. Therefore, the handicap argument has a higher burden of proof.

© Copyright thrive by design - Powered by Wordpress - Designed by Speckyboy