The objective of this study is to investigate the mediating effect of meaning presence, generativity, and spirituality in the relationship between search for meaning in life and subjective well-being. A total of 391 middle aged males and females(156 males and 235 females) in Daegu and Gyungbuk, South Korea participated in the study and completed a packet of questionnaires including searching for meaning, meaning presence, satisfaction with life, positive and negative affect, generativity and spirituality. Structural equation modeling was conducted to investigate the structural relationships among variables. Also, Latent mean analysis and multigroup analysis was conducted to investigate gender differences in middle aged male and female groups.
Findings indicated that (1) while the effect of search for meaning on subjective well-being was mediated by the variables of meaning presence, generativity, and spirituality, as expected, (2) those three mediating variables further mediated another different path(s) among variables, respectively. Specifically, (3) generativity mediated the effect of search for meaning on meaning presence, (4) meaning presence mediated both the relationship between search for meaning and spirituality and the relationship between generativity and subjective well-being, and (5) sprituality mediated the effect of meaning presence on subjective well-being. In addition, the relationship among variables was more or less varied when gender difference was taken into consideration: (6) the effect of spirituality on subjective well-being for male participants was stronger than that of female participants. This study may enhance the understanding of the nature of subjective well-being of middle aged adults in that the inconsistent relationship between search for meaning and subjective well-being reported in the previous literature was found to be mediated by meaning presence, generativity, and spirituality.