Meaning as Experienced Relevance: A Systemic Theory of Psychological Investment, Hope, and Coherence

This paper develops a systemic theory of psychological investment based on the concept of relevance. It argues that psychological systems allocate limited resources—such as attention, energy, time, and action—according to relevance evaluations. Relevance is defined as the weighting of information according to its expected influence on future coherence. Meaning is then interpreted as the phenomenological appearance of relevance: what appears externally as relevance is experienced internally as meaning. On this basis, the paper proposes that several central psychological constructs—meaning, hope, self-efficacy, belonging, identity, and major emotions—can be understood as different manifestations of a common relevance mechanism. Meaning represents experienced relevance over time. Hope is defined as the perceived future repairability of relevant coherence. Self-efficacy describes perceived influence over relevant states. Belonging is interpreted as social relevance, and identity as an organized model of relevance. The paper further applies this framework to depression, loneliness, identity crises, therapy, and suicidality. Psychological crises are interpreted not merely as disturbances of mood or cognition, but as disruptions in relevance organization, future coherence, and continued investment. Recovery is understood as the reorganization of relevance through resonance, experience, recognition, and renewed hope. The model integrates and extends ideas from Frankl, Bandura, Beck, Grawe, Baumeister and Leary, Deci and Ryan, Joiner, and Snyder, while proposing relevance as a unifying theoretical construct.