Self-Transcendence, Social Networks and Meaning in Life of the Retired Older Adults with Chronic Illness in Hong Kong

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-954-4_20How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Self-transcendence; Social networks; Meaning in life; Chronic illness

Abstract

Previous studies have highlighted the importance of self-transcendence, the meaning of life, and social networks in successful ageing. However, there is a lack of studies exploring the relationship between self-transcendence, the meaning of life, and the social networks of retired older adults with chronic illnesses. One hundred fifty samples of older adults, comprising 63 males and 87 females, with a mean age of 69.69 years and a standard deviation of 3.18 years, were collected. The Meaning in Life Questionnaire, the Self-transcendence Scale and the Lubben Social Network Scale were used to measure the three variables. The PROCESS Macro for SPSS v4.2 Model 4 was used to examine the relationship between the three study variables. The results revealed that self-transcendence is positively related to the presence of meaning and social networks (β=.51, p<.001; β=.64, p<.001), while social networks is not related to the presence of meaning (β=.11, p=.20) in the first model. In the second model, self-transcendence is positively related to the search for meaning and social networks (β=.72, p<.001; β=.61, p<.001), while social networks is not related to the search for meaning (β=.12, p=.08). The results show that self-transcendence is significantly associated with a stronger sense of the presence of meaning and search for meaning among retired older adults with chronic illnesses in Hong Kong. This highlights the importance of self-transcendence as a key personal value in fostering a meaningful life for older adults. It implied that the services for increasing self-transcendence could be strengthened.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yin Yan Chan
AU  - Raymond Chi-fai Chui
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/29
TI  - Self-Transcendence, Social Networks and Meaning in Life of the Retired Older Adults with Chronic Illness in Hong Kong
BT  - Proceedings of the Positive Psychology 2.0 International Conference 2025 (PP 2.0 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 262
EP  - 270
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-954-4_20
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-954-4_20
ID  - Chan2025
ER  -