When Fan Yang’s children came home complaining about a crafting class, they had a particularly strong advocate.
“They said, ‘They don’t let us take home our creations,’” Yang, a research associate professor at the University of Chicago recalled. “I almost emailed the teachers to send them our paper.”
Her paper , published in 2026 in Psychological Science , revealed how even something minimal—like saving artwork—makes a meaningful difference to motivation.
A lack of motivation in work or life can move from languishing and quitting to more serious issues like depression , suicidal ideations , and antisocial behavior. Having a sense of significance—that one’s life, work, or activities have value—can help provide meaning and incentive. However, because most research on significance focuses on careers and life as a whole, little is known about the impact of significance on small, everyday activities. Additionally, the need for meaning is often considered a luxury concern that is only relevant for some people and only later in life. But Yang thinks it’s more fundamental than that.
“It’s almost like air. We actually really need it,” she said. “In a lot of situations we don’t really notice because it’s already there.”
For the paper, Yang and Yilin Liu, now a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Dallas, performed four studies on 4–9-year-olds and adults to see if significance is a deeply rooted need starting early in life and whether minimal significance can have an effect.
The participants were shown puzzle pieces and told they could use them to create shapes, which would either be kept in a box or shredded. Both children and adults liked the game and preferred to play it more when the shapes were saved than when they were shredded. In another study, when told their art would be trashed, adults and older children didn’t bother creating the shapes. The findings reveal that even something as minor as saving a piece of artwork has meaning.
“We need this fundamental significance to help us to feel more motivated,” Liu said.
Both children and adults were also more willing to pay to play the game (by giving up a sticker) if their shape were saved. However, if they watched someone else create the shape, rather than doing it themselves, they were less willing to give up their sticker.
“It has to be something they personally create for them to really care about it,” said Yang, “It’s not just a basic preference for seeing things remain intact.”
In the final study, the researchers asked whether having fun is motivation enough for activities without lasting significance, like building sandcastles. The setup was similar to the other studies but, in one condition, the participants were told the point was to have fun. Both children and adults were more likely to make art in the fun condition, but in trials where the participants were told their art would be destroyed, enjoyment alone did not fully compensate for the absence of significance.
“So [enjoyment and significance] do compensate for each other a little bit, but it’s more like they jointly affect our behavior,” said Yang. “One is about the fate of the outcome, the other is about the process. We as humans probably care about both.”
She thinks this can help combat nihilistic, pessimistic views.
“For things that we know probably can’t last forever, we don’t necessarily lose the passion or the interest in doing those things because we can also pay attention to the process and enjoy the process,” she said.
The opposite can also be beneficial: If work is not enjoyable, focus instead on its significance.
“Instead of asking, ‘How can I make this job more enjoyable?’ we could ask something such as, ‘Where does my work go, or what remains here because I did it, or who or what does it affect?’” said Liu. “Our paper can really be a starting point for people to think about what kind of significance they see in their own lives.”
Yang said she wants the paper to be influential for people of all ages and not only read as developmental work.
“By studying children, it actually says something about the need for significance and meaning itself,” she explained. “It’s not just this luxury, grand concern only for selected people who already have everything. It’s actually like air, it’s present everywhere. And we hope our work can make people realize how foundational it is.”
As for advice for other parents, Yang has learned that something as minimal as looking at a creation has a lot of meaning to the people who made it.
“Whenever my kids show me anything, no matter how busy I am, because of these findings, I remind myself, ‘Just look at it,’” she said. “It means a lot.”
Reference
Liu, Y., & Yang, F. (2026). Moved by the lightest touch of meaning: Even minimal significance matters for motivation from childhood. Psychological Science , 37 (8), 572–585.
Psychological Science
Moved by the Lightest Touch of Meaning: Even Minimal Significance Matters for Motivation From Childhood
16-Jul-2026