Life is a cruel joke! The Development and Evaluation of the Existential Absurdism Scale

Abstract

Grounded in Albert Camus's (1955) writings, the authors developed and evaluated the four-item Existential Absurdism Scale (EAS). Using two samples (n₁ = 956 college students; n₂ = 346 patients with chronic illness; total N = 1,302), exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a single-factor structure. The EAS demonstrated construct validity and acceptable reliability. As expected, it correlated positively with existential meaninglessness concern and negatively with meaning judgment. The EAS also positively correlated with suicide ideation and uniquely predicted suicide ideation after controlling for existential meaninglessness and meaning judgment. Supplemental model-based analyses further showed an indirect positive association with suicide ideation via meaninglessness concern. Together, these findings offer preliminary empirical support for Camus's (1955) theorizing on the absurd and identify future directions for research on existential absurdism.

Keywords

scale development Albert Camus suicide meaning the myth of Sisyphus

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