Meaning-Making With Romantic Partners

Shared Reality Promotes Meaning in Life by Reducing Uncertainty

Enestrom, M. Catalina
Rossignac-Milon, Maya
Forest, Amanda L.
Lydon, John E.

Department of Managing People in Organizations, IESE Business School
Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh
Department of Psychology, McGill University

Grainne Fitzsimons served as action editor.

The preregistered analyses, materials, syntax, and deidentified data for all studies are publicly available on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/bsj49.

Amanda L. Forest received funding from the Central Research Development Fund at the University of Pittsburgh Grant 30526. John E. Lydon received funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Grant 245846.

M. Catalina Enestrom played a lead role in conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, writing–original draft, and writing–review and editing. Maya Rossignac-Milon played a supporting role in data curation, investigation, and writing–review and editing. Amanda L. Forest played a supporting role in data curation, investigation, and writing–review and editing. John E. Lydon played a supporting role in conceptualization, data curation, investigation, methodology, and writing–review and editing.

M. Catalina Enestrom, Department of Managing People in Organizations, IESE Business School, Pearson Avenue 21, Barcelona 08034, Spain [email protected]

Received May 15, 2023

revised June 14, 2024

Accepted June 20, 2024

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 128(6):p 1315-1335, June 2025. | DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000472

We propose that, although deeply personal, meaning is facilitated by interpersonal processes. Namely, we theorize that experiencing a sense of shared reality with a close partner (i.e., perceiving an overlap in inner states about the world in general) reduces uncertainty about one’s environment, which in turn promotes meaning in work and life. In the current research, we test this hypothesis across five mixed-method studies (e.g., longitudinal, experimental). We find cross-sectional evidence for this association in a couples’ study (Study 1: N = 103 romantic dyads) and in ecologically rich samples of people experiencing highly uncertain situations, specifically Black people consistently facing racism in the United States (Study 2: N = 190 participants) and frontline health care workers directly treating COVID-19 patients during the height of the pandemic (Study 3: N = 139 participants). Further, we provide causal evidence for this association in two experiments (Studies 4 and 5: N₄ = 364 participants, N₅ = 389 participants). Taken together, this work suggests that shared reality with close partners has real-world benefits, reducing uncertainty and promoting meaning. In addition, we show that experimentally heightening shared reality, by reducing uncertainty, can promote a greater sense of meaning in life.