@ninjacolin: I’m not sure how you got the idea that fit is a part of value. Just to make it clear, I see it as a separate factor (although it would have to be confirmed by factor analysis). There might be a bit of colinearity, but hopefully they would be pretty separate.
I think your theory is interesting, too. I wish we could test them. Perhaps we can.
Ok, after a short search, I found that the psychologists tend to think of meaning in life instead of meaning of life. They do have a number of measures, and my suggested measures are actually included in some of the studies.
For example, in The Meaning in Life Questionnaire: Assessing the Presence of and Search for Meaning in Life, the authors use a number of measures, including: life satisfaction; emotional state (long term affect scale); a psychological distress instrument; the Intrinsic/Extrinsic Religiosity Scale (yay me); the Social Desirability Scale, which assesses the need to obtain social approval; and a values measure.
I think there are other measures that they use since the abstract says there are ten currently measurable components to meaning in life. Apparently, by using the MLQ (meaning in life questionnaire), they can pinpoint aspects of a person’s beliefs that a therapist can help with. They seem to assume that meaning is what you make it, but that the important thing is that the more you think there is a meaning, the less psychological problems you will have (on average).
Anyway, that study blows both of our theories out of the water. However, they do not use “fitness” as a component, and I wonder if an instrument could be developed to measure that, and if I could add to the theory on this issue.