Interest in meaning and meaning-making in the context of stressful life events continues to grow, but research is hampered by conceptual and methodological limitations. Drawing on current theories, the author first presents an integrated model of meaning making. This model distinguishes between the constructs of global and situational meaning and between "meaning-making efforts" and "meaning made," and it elaborates subconstructs within these constructs. Using this model, the author reviews the empirical research regarding meaning in the context of adjustment to stressful events, outlining what has been established to date and evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of current empirical work. Results suggest that theory on meaning and meaning making has developed apace, but empirical research ahs failed to keep up with these developments, creating a significant gap between the rich but abstract theories and empirical tests of them. Given current empirical findings, some aspects of the meaning-making model appear to be well supported but others are not, and the quality of meaning-making efforts and meanings made may be at least as important as their quantity. This article concludes with specific suggestions for futures research.
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Meanings made
Meanings made refers to the products of meaning-making processes. That is, meaning mades are end results or changes derived from attempts to reduce discrepancies or violations between appraised and global meaning. Many different meanings can be made; among them are the following.
Sense of having "made sense."
Acceptance
Reattributions and causal understanding
Perceptions of growth or positive life changes
This type of meaning made is perhaps the most commonly assessed (e.g., Abbey & Halman, 1995) and has garnered increased attention in recent years (e.g., Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2006). Many people report positive changes, such as improved relationships, enhanced personal resources and coping skills, and greater appreciation for life, as a result of highly stressful experiences (Park & Helgeson, 2006). Although such changes are usually conceptualized as personal growth, people also identify other positive changes, some of which are simply perks (e.g., diabetic children getting snacks; Helgeson, Lopez, & Mennella, 2009) or fortunate side benefits (e.g., financial gain; McMillen, Smith, & Fisher, 1997). In all of these ways, the appraised meaning of the stressor is transformed to a more positive (and presumably less discrepant) one, regardless of whether the perceived changes are veridical (Park, 2008a)
Changed identity/integration of the stressful experience into identity
Another potentially important outcome of meaning making involves identity reconstruction, shifts in one's personal biographical narrative as a result of experience (Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006). For example, cancer survivorship has been described as involving integration of the cancer experience into one's self-concept, along with a sense of "living through and beyond cancer," resulting in a revised identity (Zebrack, 2000) (...)
Reappraised meaning of the stressor
Individuals often transform the appraised meaning of an event, rendering it less noxious and more consistent with their preexisting global beliefs and desires. For example, individuals may come to see an event as benign relative to that experienced by others (Taylor et., 1983) and sometimes see themselves as relatively fortunate that the event was not worse (Thompson, 1985). They may also reappraise the nature of the event, as in reconstruing their relationship with the deceased in bereavement (Bonanno & Kaltman, 1999), or reevaluate the implications of the event in more positive ways (Resick et al., 2008)
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Perceptions of and satisfaction with retirement: A comparison of six European Union countries - Fouquereau Evelyne, Virpi Uotinen, and Anner Fernandez (2005)
Classically defined as the withdrawal of an individual from employment, retirement in fact covers a variety of scenarios. Objectively, researchers have identified various pathways to retirement, including some forms of bridging employment: part-time work, intermittent work, self-employment (Davis, 2003). Subjectively, the work-to-retirement process is a major life transition corresponding to the psychosocial transitions model (Theriault, 1994). Like any other transitional experience, exit from the workforce constitutes a major change in life which has lasting effects, takes place over a relatively short period of time, affects large areas of the assumptive world, and thus triggers a series of internal reorganizations in the individual's life (Parkes, 1971). Numerous psychosocial studies have been conducted to clarify the impact of retirement on retirees' life satisfaction (or related constructs such as quality of life and subjective well-being).
Findings have been contradictory: Some studies have shown that retirement has no significant impact on life satisfaction (Stull, 1988). Still, other highlight the negative impact: retirees reporting poor health, depression, and low life satisfaction (de Grace, Joshi, Pelletier, & Beaupre, 1994). Others, by contrast, support the positive impact: retirees being generally healthy, well-adjusted, and reporting increased well-being (Gall, Evans, & Howard, 1997). Therefore, even if retirement in different ways. Numerous studies have focused on factors that could explain the various life satisfaction levels observed among retirees.
These factors can be broadly categorized into four sets. The first concerns sociodemographic factors such as gender (Quick & Moen, 1998), age (Hanson & Wapner, 1994), marital status (Demo & Acock, 1996), and previous occupational status (Demo & Acock, 1996), and previous occupational status (e.g., Gee & Baillie, 1999). The second set includes individual characteristics such as personality factors (Taylor-Carter, & Cook, 1995), mental and physical health (e.g., Hardy & Quadagno, 1995), and acceptance of aging and the retiree role (e.g., Matila, Joukamaa, Alanen & Salokangas, 1990). The third set relates to how working life ended, that is, voluntarily or involuntarily (Gall et al., 1997), reasons for retirement (e.g., Fouquereau, Fernandez, & Mullet, 1999), and planning and preparation (e.g., Taylor & Shore, 1994). The fourth set deals with cultural, economic, and social factors (Ekerdt & Clark, 2001)
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Implicit theories of intelligence and academic achievement: A meta-analytic review, Ana Costa and Luisa Faria
In the academic context, implicit theories about intelligence (see the achievement motivational model; Dweck and Legget, 1988; Dweck, 1999) have been widely examined with respect to the learning processes and outcome variables (Burnette et al., 2013). Implicit theories can frame a student's specific mindset, along a continuum from an entity to an incremental belief, create distinct meaning systems (Hong et al., 1999) that can trigger different patterns of response to challenging situations and setbacks (Dweck and Leggett, 1988; Henderson and Dweck, 1990; Dweck, 1999; Dweck and Sorich, 1999) and ultimately influencing students' learning processes and achievement outcomes.
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