Meaning of Life in Retirees: The Relationship of Personality Traits and Religious Attitude

Retirement is one of the most important spans of life especially in current times which aged population is growing fast and needs more attention. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between personality traits and religious attitudes with the meaning of life in retirees. Methods: The present study was descriptive and correlational. The population included all inhabitants in Nahavand of Iran which 200 of them were selected by simple random sampling method. The research tools were NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), Religious Attitude Scale (RAS) and Meaning of Life Questionnaire (MLQ). Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation and multiple regression analysis. Results: The results showed that there was a significant relationship between personality traits and meaning of life (p<0.05). There was a significant negative relationship between neuroticism and meaning of life (p<0.05), and there were significant positive relationships between the meaning of life with extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (p<0.05). There was also a significant positive relationship between religious attitude and meaning of life (p<0.05). The results of multiple regression analysis showed that agreeableness, conscientiousness, and religious attitude could explain 37% of the meaning of life variance significantly (p<0.05). Conclusion: Overall the results showed that agreeableness, conscientiousness and religious attitude have important role in people’s sense of meaning in their lives.