MEANING AND HOPE - TWO FACTORS OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONING IN LATE ADULTHOOD

The collaborative role of life meaning and hope in positive human functioning is investigated. The research sample consisted of 94 persons in late adulthood (50-79). Reker's Personal Meaning Index (PMI) was used for measuring life meaningfulness and Snyder's Hope Scale for measuring the level of hope. As indicators of mental functioning use was made of Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale (SES), Spielberger's State-Trait Personality Inventory (STPI), which measures one positive characteristic (curiosity) and three negative characteristics (depressiveness, aggressiveness and anxiousness) of mental health, Rotter's internality-externality scale, and dimension neuroticism from NEO Five Factor Inventory. A model with three latent variables was set up: positive life regard (created by meaningfulness and hope), positive mental functioning (self-esteem, curiosity and internality) and negative mental functioning (depressiveness, aggressiveness, anxiousness and neuroticism). The model with a suggested statistical causal influence of positive life regard to positive and negative functioning was tested by LISREL analysis. This analysis showed a strong positive causal influence of positive life regard on positive functioning and a negative causal influence on negative functioning. The discussion deals with the possible contribution of internal locus of control to positive life regard index, as ensued from the results.