Time poverty undermines meaning in life: the mediating role of reduced intrinsic goal aspirations

Summary

Time poverty, the chronic subjective perception of having too little time, may undermine meaning in life (MIL). Integrating scarcity theory with goal content theory, we propose that it does so in part by reducing the importance people place on intrinsic goals. Study 1 provided initial archival evidence linking perceived time poverty to a proxy for meaninglessness-related experience (N = 54,568), and Study 2 provided converging evidence from natural-language analyses of social media posts (N = 126,424). Study 3 examined the proposed mediation in a survey sample using validated scales (N = 383): Reduced intrinsic goal aspirations mediated the time poverty–MIL association, whereas extrinsic goal aspirations—though themselves associated with time poverty—were unrelated to MIL. Study 4 showed that participants assigned to a time-poor context reported lower intrinsic goal aspirations and lower MIL (N = 160). Study 5 showed that enhancing intrinsic goal aspirations through a brief reflection task attenuated this negative effect (N = 396). These findings identify reduced intrinsic goal aspirations as one pathway linking time poverty to lower MIL and suggest a practical route for protecting meaning under time scarcity.