Linking empowerment and sense of community to life satisfaction through meaning in life

This study examined how psychological empowerment and sense of community link to life satisfaction by mediating through two dimensions of meaning in life (i.e., presence and search). Participants were 214 Japanese undergraduate students (79 males, 131 females, and 4 who did not report gender), with a mean age of 18.54 years (SD = 0.76). Measures of three dimensions of empowerment (intrapersonal, interpersonal, sociopolitical), sense of community, meaning in life, and life satisfaction were administered. Results of hierarchical regression analyses indicated that the presence of meaning was a stronger predictor of life satisfaction than search for meaning. Mediation analyses were conducted using average causal mediation effects (ACME), average direct effects (ADE), and total effects, with 95% confidence intervals. The presence of meaning significantly mediated the associations between intrapersonal empowerment and satisfaction with life (ACME = 0.30, 95% CI [0.16, 0.45]; 50.5% mediated), interpersonal empowerment and satisfaction with life (ACME = 0.23, 95% CI [0.09, 0.42]; 34.7% mediated), and sense of community and satisfaction with life (ACME = 0.18, 95% CI [0.03, 0.32]; 36.1% mediated). In contrast, the indirect effect of sociopolitical empowerment through the presence of meaning was not significant (ACME = 0.10, 95% CI [-0.03, 0.24]), although the direct effect remained significant (ADE = 0.20, 95% CI [0.02, 0.39]). The search for meaning showed a more selective mediating pattern, significantly mediating the association between sociopolitical empowerment and satisfaction with life (ACME = 0.09, 95% CI [0.01, 0.18]; 29.0% mediated). These findings suggest that psychological resources are linked to satisfaction with life primarily through the presence of meaning, whereas search for meaning plays a more context-specific role.