With the rise of biotechnological tools such as ancestral information tests, individuals today are able to discover previously inaccessible information about themselves. Here, we explore how obtaining ancestral information—information about family history and lineage—affects people's sense of social connectedness and perceived meaning in their lives. In addition, we investigate how ancestral information affects individuals' motivations to engage in self-care behaviors or behaviors that enhance their legacy. The primary goal of this research is to identify a novel antecedent of meaning in life—past rather than present social connections and to understand how receiving ancestral information affects future behavior and decisions. We randomly assigned individuals to receive information about (1) their ancestry, (2) others' ancestral information, or (3) their current social networks. From our data (N = 365), we did not find statistically significant differences among the three conditions on social connectedness and life meaning. Thus, the role of ancestral information in improving social connection and life meaning remains inconclusive. We discuss the implications of these results for future research on social connection and life meaning.

随着祖先信息测试等生物技术工具的兴起，今天的人们能够发现以前无法获得的有关自己的信息。在这里，我们探讨获取祖先信息（有关家族历史和血统的信息）如何影响人们的社会联系感和生活意义。此外，我们还研究祖先信息如何影响个人从事自我保健行为或增强其遗产的行为的动机。这项研究的主要目标是确定生命意义的新前因——过去而不是现在的社会联系，并了解接收祖先信息如何影响未来的行为和决策。我们随机分配个体接收有关（1）他们的祖先，（2）其他人的祖先信息，或（3）他们当前的社交网络的信息。从我们的数据（N  = 365）来看，我们没有发现这三个条件在社会联系和生活意义方面存在统计上的显着差异。因此，祖先信息在改善社会联系和生活意义方面的作用仍然没有定论。我们讨论这些结果对未来社会联系和生命意义研究的影响。