How practicing our purpose aim contributes to a cultural common good, and vice versa

Abstract

Life purpose is fundamentally ecological: individual life purpose aims interacting with cultural resources generate momentum in individual lives and in cultures. A dynamic life momentum loop model highlights how a purpose practice starts with a purpose aim (mental representation of a specific prosocial effect), filtered by personal meaning (significance or importance), that influences perception of situational resources (a subset of a culture's shared meanings, artifacts, practices and "behavioral defaults" stored in the "common good") to initiate opportunities to enact the envisioned prosocial effect, and afterward evaluate perceived feedback for effectiveness. Cultures also develop and, with increasing multicultural contact, individuals can influence and be influenced by multiple common goods. Repetitions of this purpose practice loop generate individual life momentum and shared cultural momentum.