People seek meaning in their lives. The goal of our research is to understand the social motivation for meaning and its relation to moral behavior. Our research program implements a social-cognitive approach to study how meaning motivates morality, specifically examining relationship maintenance mechanisms and prosocial behavior, and how individuals ardently (and implicitly) defend meaning. We implement a variety of research methodologies to explore the function and defense of meaning, the role of meaning systems, and the fundamental elements of forgiveness and humility. Our research is centered on basic social and cognitive processes of meaning and moral behaviors. There are two primary intersecting lines of interdisciplinary research. First, we conduct research on meaning, especially examining the social motivation for meaning and the social-cognitive functions of meaning systems. Second, we investigate morality and virtues, particularly focusing on forgiveness and humility and their effects on close relationships.