A thematic analysis of Tweets about purpose in life

Researchers have grown increasingly interested in studying the effects of purpose and in cultivating purpose among lay people. However, little is known about how people discuss purpose in their daily lives; understanding this would be useful to mental health professionals and purpose-fostering programs trying to help people cultivate purpose. Using key words and phrases generated through natural language processing, we identified 2,000 Tweets referencing purpose and used them to conduct three thematic analyses. Findings suggest that people regard the pursuit of purpose as a socially desirable aim, that they find the search for purpose to be anxiety-provoking, and that they believe purposes can be cultivated even if they are not necessarily sure how to go about doing so. This study highlights a novel and potentially useful method for studying lay conceptions of positive psychological constructs, and it outlines implications of our findings for the study and support of purpose.