Frank Martela on Beneficence and Meaning in Life
Frank Martela is a philosopher and researcher of psychology specialized in meaningfulness, human motivation and how organizations and institutions can unleash human potential. He has two Ph.D.’s from organizational research (2012, Aalto University) and practical philosophy (2019, University of Helsinki), has spoken at universities on four continents including Harvard and Stanford, written for Scientific American Mind, and Harvard Business Review, and been interviewed by New York Times and Vice News. His book A Wonderful Life: Insights on Finding a Meaningful Experience (HarperCollins, 2020) has been translated to 24 languages, including French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Korean, and Indonesian.
By Kenneth Vail, Cleveland State University. August 25, 2021.
ISSEP: How did you first become aware of and interested in existentialism and existential psychology?
Clockwise from top left: Jostein Gaardner; Sophie’s World (1991); Hermann Hesse; and Narcissus and Goldmund (1930).
Frank Martela: When I was around 14 or 15 years old, I read Jostein Gaardner’s Sophie’s World (1991) and Hermann Hesse’s book Narcissus and Goldmund (1930), and was quite inspired by them. Gaardner’s novel incorporated a really accessible way of understanding the history of philosophy, from the pre-Socratics, to Renaissance, to Romanticism, to Existentialism. Hesse’s book really showed existentialism in action, as these two guys in medieval Germany become friends in a monastery but then make these very different life choices. Narcissus remains in the church and eventually becomes an Abbot, while Goldmund leaves the church for freedom and becomes a traveler and an artist. When the Black Plague devastates the region, they meet again and reflect on their different life paths.
The thing that struck me was that both of them were living a good life, from their point of view. Their stories highlighted, for me, the importance of pluralism, the value of authenticity, and the reality of relativism in our search for meaning – the idea that there is not just one good way of living, but many good ways of living, and that we make our own meaning in life. Those books really resonated with my own real-world experiences up to that point. My mother belonged to the church whereas my father didn’t, and they each were healthy, loved, and accepted by the other. So I wasn’t indoctrinated into church or told to not to believe. Instead, they gave me a lot of freedom to explore the world’s ideas and make up my own mind about things. All of that, and a high school philosophy teacher who was able to facilitate stimulating discussions about “grand questions” of life, made me want to study these existentialist topics more deeply.
After I took all the possible philosophy courses in high school, I went on to study philosophy further in university. But academic philosophy was often too theoretical, too distant from what people are actually experiencing. So I started to look for areas where I could more practically evaluate ideas, and that led me to psychological science. Eventually, I went to a European positive psychology conference, where I met Richard Ryan who was giving the Keynote Address about self-determination theory and research. That stuff clicked, and I reached out to him and before I knew it I had funding to come study with him for some time in Rochester NY. That’s where I began to really get involved in the science of existential psychology.
ISSEP: How did you develop your interest in whether beneficence makes daily activities, and even work, feel more meaningful?
Frank Martela: I had been thinking about the idea that Western culture emphasizes individualism, alongside the idea that humans are “social animals.” It really seemed like prosocial benevolence is natural and wholesome, whereas the “look out for #1” mentality is a learned tendency that, ironically, may or may not be fulfilling.
Robert Bellah and his colleagues wrote about this in Habits of the heart (1985). For example, in one large scale study they observed how people behaved in a variety of social situations and then interviewed them afterward, to ask them to explain why they behaved the way they did. The actual observations showed people behaving altruistically (not selfishly), but in the interviews people tended to give more selfish rationalizations for their behaviors. They argued that we’re naturally drawn to help others, and we’re interested in supporting other people’s well-being, but our modern culture exerts a pressure on us to think of ourselves and the world around us in more selfish terms.
There’s another really interesting book, called The bonobo and the atheist (2013), in which primatologist Frans de Waal argues for that same point. The reason why we see things like the compassionate “Golden Rule” show up in every religion is the same reason we see compassion in secular life, and it’s the same reason why we see other higher primates like the bonobos also exercise and enforce compassion toward each other. It’s that compassion was evolutionarily adaptive in primates, and so we humans (and other higher primates) evolved to naturally want to avoid hurting oneself or others—what religions previously called “sin”—and to want, instead, to be benevolent.
I had been thinking about that sort of stuff for quite some time. Then, I met Rich Ryan and learned about the research on self-determination theory, finding that if people perceive a sense of personal autonomy, competence, and relatedness, they’ll tend to experience well-being and meaning in life. So I also began to wonder if experiences that feel benevolent would also promote well-being and meaning in life.
ISSEP: You’ve been doing some longitudinal and experimental research about the impact of benevolence on meaning in life. Can you tell us more about that?
Frank Martela: Yes, I’ve conducted a few studies on this now. One study was cross-sectional, where we measured the extent to which people felt a sense of autonomy, competence, relatedness, and benevolence, and then also measured meaning and subjective well-being outcomes. Statistical regression models showed that all four, even including benevolence, predicted meaning and well-being. Then, we conducted a daily-diary study where every day at 6pm we asked participants to indicate what they had been doing that day, rate the degree to which they felt a sense of benevolence in their actions, and rate their sense of meaning in life. We got the same result: day-to-day fluctuations in the sense of benevolence were associated with fluctuations in vitality and meaningfulness. We did another longitudinal study, among Chilean workers, and again found that when they felt their work activities had benevolent outcomes, they felt their work was more meaningful.
I also did an experimental method study. I asked University of Rochester students to play a simple computer game where they had to identify synonyms for certain words. One group of students played the game for 20 minutes and then answered a brief survey about their current feelings. Another group did the same, but they were informed that for every correct answer, a small sum of money will be donated to United Nations World Food Program to help end hunger—the same activity but now with benevolence. Results showed this latter “benevolent” actions group experienced the game as significantly more meaningful.
ISSEP: What do you see as the remaining issues in better understanding the role of beneficence in cultivating a sense of meaning and purpose?
Frank Martela: One direction would be to do more experimental research designs, to establish causal paths and to test the effectiveness of interventions. If an opportunity to contribute and help others has a positive impact on one’s sense of meaningfulness, then what might it look like to develop interventions to help promote both of those processes? Some might prefer direct face-to-face interactions, but some might prefer more indirect contributions such as through charitable giving, science, or government policy. Another direction would be to learn more about the difference between conscious and non-conscious processes involved in these, potentially innate, “needs” for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, as well as orientations toward beneficence and meaning in life.
ISSEP: You’ve been studying these issues using psychological science. Do you see your research topic being dealt with in interesting ways in the humanities or the arts?
Frank Martela: There are so many excellent examples. Some classics, that I like, are Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1878) and Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus (1836). Both of them grew up with a strong religious background, with an eye toward joining the clergy, but each experienced substantial existential crises as young adults and then struggled with spirituality and the search for meaning for quite some time.
A more modern example is the Pixar movie Soul (2020). One point of the film is that meaning in life isn’t just autonomy, competence, and relatedness, but also benevolence. The lead character, Joe Gardner, spent almost all of his time genuinely and authentically interested in jazz, he was good at it, and got along with others. But it was a selfish passion; he wasn’t being benevolent with it—it was all about what he wanted, he was all about himself. As a result, he felt listless and it wasn’t as meaningful as he thought it should be. But then he died, came back with “22,” and suddenly found himself in situations where he had to care for and help other people. He had to take care of 22, and 22 showed him what it felt like to care about and express benevolent concern for his mother, his barber, and his music students. And once he made that realization, and began to focus on benevolent contributions to the well-being of the other people, he was able to feel his life was truly and wonderfully meaningful.
ISSEP: You’ve attended, and presented research at, our Existential Psychology Preconferences. How has your experience been with those?
Frank Martela: Before the Existential Psychology preconference was around, the field was really missing this topic. Sure, the SPSP Conference would have a few little talks here and there, but for the most part it wasn’t really getting the attention it deserved. But when this preconference began [2019], and it was immediately so popular, it really showed that there was an untapped interest for research to focus on existential topics.
I’ve attended multiple years of the Existential Psychology preconference, and it’s really become something that I look forward to each year. The first year [2019], I loved that Rich Ryan gave a Keynote Address about the role of self-determination in existential social psychology, and I’ve been coming back for more ever since.
One of the things I enjoy most is learning how people take abstract philosophical ideas, turn them into falsifiable research questions, and then empirical test them in their research projects. Every time I learn about how others have done that, it gives me such inspiration to do the same myself. Another thing is that I’ve enjoyed becoming part of the community. When I first came to the field I thought I would be a bit of an outsider, because I was a philosopher and didn’t really know any of the other researchers. But everyone is so welcoming and supportive! Now, when I come to the conference I always have so many colleagues to reconnect with in the corridors and to visit with over lunches and dinners. It’s really so easy to feel like you belong here.
“First, read widely, and outside of the academic literature...
Second, make collaborative connections with the researchers who inspire you!”
ISSEP: What is one piece of advice you would give to future students who have an interest in following in your footsteps?
Frank Martela: Two pieces of advice. First, read widely, and outside of the academic literature. The philosophical works on existentialism can be a great place to start, because from there you can find interesting and plausible ideas. Then, you can check the research literature, adjust the research question to best advance the science on the topic, and test the ideas empirically.
Second, make collaborative connections with the researchers who inspire you! Go to the conference, send emails to people working on related topics, invite other researchers to collaborate with you on your projects. The more the merrier, and if they’re more experienced in the field it can also be a helpful learning experience. I’ve had several projects which I probably could have competently completed by myself, but I reached out to invite collaborations with more senior members of the field, like Mike Steger, Richard Ryan, or Ken Sheldon, and it turned out to be a excellent learning experience because I could see first-hand how other experts think about complicated theoretical issues (self-determination, meaning in life) and how they think about and apply various methodological techniques. Those collaborative experiences have done much to advance my thinking and my career.
ISSEP: Can you tell us a little about yourself outside the research context?
Frank Martela: I have three small kids, so most of my time outside of work I spend with my family. Now that they’re growing up, and a little bigger, it’s quite nice to do fun outdoor sports and activities with them. We like to go cross country skiing and downhill skiing together. Those are things I used to love doing, and now they are really loving it too. Sometimes we go on little holidays for that, but quite often now they will just take the skis and pull me right outside our door so we can play in the snow!
I also like to play soccer, since I was about 6 years old. I’m typically a striker, and it’s funny because even though I’m so into all of this benevolence and prosocial behavior, if you ask my team they will say I’m quite an aggressive player! We have a league here, with a few different skill divisions, and before the pandemic our team recently moved up a division! We haven’t played during the pandemic, because team sports stopped, so I’m looking forward to that coming back again.
ISSEP: A lot of us like to listen to music in the lab; what are you listening to lately?
Frank Martela: I’ve done those Big-Five personality tests for myself, and I’m very high in openness to experience. That’s definitely reflected in my musical interests, because I tend to not stick with one genre or artist—I’m always searching for something new to explore. So it’s hard to say; there are different answers on different days.
One of my old favorites is Shine on Me (1993), by a psychedelic progressive rock band in Finland called Kingston Wall.
Also, Rage Against the Machine is one of the bands that I enjoy very much. I always think that’s a curious band to enjoy. Our Finnish Prime Minister right now (Sanna Marin) is a young woman about our age, 35 years old I believe, and when she was asked her favorite band she mentioned RAtM too, and that might be true… but now she is the machine! I thought that was such a funny choice! Anyway, they had a gig in Finland in 2000, at a Rock Festival, and I was there. It was probably the greatest show I’ve ever seen.