Abstract

MARTINEZ ORTIZ, Efrén  and  CASTELLANOS MORALES, Carol. Perception of the Meaning of Life among Colombian University Students. Pensam. psicol. [online]. 2013, vol.11, n.1, pp.71-82. ISSN 1657-8961.

Objective. This study was undertaken to describe the perception of the meaning of life among university students in Bogotá, this being defined by Martínez as affective-cognitive perception of values that invite the person to act in one way or another to specific situations or life in general, giving coherence and personal identity. The objective was to characterize the perception of the meaning of life according to the academic area, gender and age of the participants. Method. The convenience sample consisted of 695 college students, of whom 68.9% were women (479) and 31.1% were men (216), with mean age of 22.17 years. Results. By applying the Dimensional Scale of Meaning of Life, there were no significant differences found by gender, 36.7% of participants showed a low meaning of life and students between 16 and 20 years showed a higher score of meaning of life. Medical and nursing students showed higher scores meaning of life, however, students of psychology and social communication had significantly lower scores than other participants. Conclusion. This work constitutes a first general approach in the Colombian population, with an instrument developed and validated for the country to characterize the meaning of life and raises new research questions regarding the mental health of students of psychology in view of its correlation with the meaning of life reported in other studies.

Keywords : Meaning of life; Existential Psychology; college students.

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