IntroductionThe positive relationship between future orientation and prosocial tendency has been consistently reported. However, the possible mechanism has not been examined yet. Previous research revealed the positive relationship between future orientation and meaning in life, as well as between meaning in life and prosocial tendency. Hence, it is hypothesized that the two components of meaning in life (presence of meaning and search for meaning) possibly mediate the relationship between future orientation and prosocial tendency.MethodsDuring the first half of 2020, 430 Hong Kong youths aged 15–35 (male: 30.5%; female: 69.5%) were recruited to participate an online cross-sectional survey. The survey included three scales: (1) The Scale for Measuring Adult’s Prosocialness, (2) Consideration of Future Consequence Scale, and (3) Meaning in Life Questionnaire.ResultsThe key findings showed that: (1) females had higher level of prosocial tendency than males, and (2) significant partial mediating effects of both presence of meaning and search for meaning on the relationship between future orientation and prosocial tendency. Nevertheless, the multi-group mediation model did not show significant gender difference.DiscussionThese findings implied that future-oriented and meaning-focused interventions could possibly enhance youth’s sense of meaning in everyday life and foster their meaning searching tendency, which further strengthen the positive effect of their future orientation on prosocial tendency, even during life adversities.

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The positive relationship between future orientation and prosocial tendency has been consistently reported. However, the possible mechanism has not yet examined. Previous research revealed that the positive effect of future orientation on meaning in life, and the positive effect of meaning in life on prosocial tendency. Therefore, it is hypothesized that meaning in life and its two components (presence of meaning and search for meaning) are potential mediators between the relationship between future orientation and prosocial tendency. This study recruited 432 Hong Kong youths aged 15-35 (males: 30.5%; females: 69.5%) to participate in an online cross-sectional survey in the first half of 2020. The survey questionnaire included three scales: including 1) The Scale for Measuring Adult's Prosocialness, 2) Consideration of Future Consequence Scale, and 3) Meaning in Life Questionnaire. The major results showed 1) a significant partial mediation effect of meaning in life on the relationship between future orientation and prosocial tendency, and 2) significant partial mediation effects of presence of meaning and search for meaning on the relationship between future orientation and prosocial tendency respectively. These findings suggested that developing meaning-centered interventions that can increasing youth's awareness of their meaning in life (past and present) and finding their meaning in life (future) can strengthen the positive effect of future orientation on their prosocial tendency.

Social unrest, coupled with the outbreak of COVID-19, was a double-hit for Hong Kong in early 2020. Those stressful societal situations not only trigger negative emotions, such as anxiety and/or depression, but also consolidate a person’s belief towards oneself (i.e., meaning in life) and society (i.e., social axioms). The study included 2031 participants from the Formation and Transformation of Beliefs in Chinese (FTBC) project dataset. The data were collected in Hong Kong from February 2020 to March 2020 (double-hit). Path analysis and multiple regression were used to examine the mediating and moderating effects of the presence subscale (P) of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ) on the relations between social axioms and negative emotions. Results showed that low MLQ-P mediated the associations between cynicism and negative emotions and between low religiosity and negative emotions and moderated the relation between social cynicism and emotional outcomes. Exploratory analyses showed that MLQ-Search (S) mediated the relations between reward for application and negative emotions, between social complexity and negative emotions, and between fate control and negative emotions, and moderated the relation between religiosity and stress. As far as we know, this study reported the first evidence of the role of meaning in life in explaining and modifying the associations between social axioms and mood states. The presence of and search for meaning in life seem to work differently with respect to the relations between social axioms and negative emotions, with important implications for understanding the dynamics of social and personal beliefs in affecting mental health in times of large-scale public crisis.

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