The Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life (SoMe) questionnaire in Finnish: Sociodemographic findings of meaningfulness and crisis of meaning in the Finnish context

Abstract

BackgroundPsychological research about meaningfulness is concerned with a subjective sense of meaning of one's own life, that is, meaning in life. Empirical research in this field is attracting interest, as meaning in life has wide‐ranging positive implications for mental health and well‐being.AimThe aim of this article is to test the validity of the Finnish translation of the Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life (SoMe) questionnaire. In the article, meaningfulness and crisis of meaning are correlated with sources of meaning, and results are compared with other validation studies in Norway, Denmark, and Brazil as well as with the original German questionnaire.MethodsTo meet our aim, 551 participants were recruited to answer the Finnish questionnaire. The internal and construct validity of the Finnish questionnaire were tested with reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and analysis of intercorrelations of items in the questionnaire.ResultsThe analysis demonstrated similar reliability to other validation studies of the questionnaire and results highly comparable to the Norwegian study regarding the internal structure of the questionnaire. Results of intercorrelations of items within the questionnaire were also comparable to the other validation studies.