Abstract
AbstractObjectiveAlthough meaning making and specifically autobiographical reasoning are expected to relate to well‐being, findings tend to be mixed. Attempts at meaning making do not always lead to meaning made. We aimed to disentangle these complex relationships and also explore the role of level of education.MethodNinety participants (mean age 36.73 years, SD = 7.27; 74.4% women, 25.6% men) who had experienced the loss of a parent through death, going missing, or Alzheimer's disease narrated this loss, a sad, a turning point, and a self‐defining memory, and completed questionnaires assessing depression, trauma symptoms, and protracted grief. Three aspects of autobiographical reasoning (quantity, valence, and change‐relatedness of self‐event connections) were related to meaning made (sophistication of meaning making) and symptom level.ResultsYears of education correlated both with positive implications of autobiographical reasoning and with meaning made. The quantity, positivity, and change‐relatedness of attempts at meaning making (self‐event connections) predicted accomplished meaning made, and positivity alone predicted less prolonged grief.ConclusionsAdapting the life story after a loss such that change of the self is acknowledged and positive change can be constructed helps finding meaning and lowering protracted grief. These changes in narrative identity are supported by more years of education.
Highlights
Habermas and Bluck (2000) proposed the term autobiographical reasoning for the activity of creating links between remembered events and other distant parts of one's life or to the self and its development, for biographical forms of meaning making
We first introduce the relationship between broadly defined meaning making attempts and meaning made, and of both with adjustment, we introduce the potential relations among three aspects of meaning making attempts and meaning made, to discuss the understudied role of education for autobiographical reasoning
The purpose of this study was to examine associations between frequency and qualities of meaning making attempts and resulting meaning made. It aimed at determining their association with educational level and symptom level
Summary
Habermas and Bluck (2000) proposed the term autobiographical reasoning for the activity of creating links between remembered events and other distant parts of one's life or to the self and its development, for biographical forms of meaning making. Such explicating of the biographical relevance of memories requires extra mental effort compared to mere remembering (Lavallé et al, 2019). We first introduce the relationship between broadly defined meaning making attempts and meaning made, and of both with adjustment, we introduce the potential relations among three aspects of meaning making attempts and meaning made, to discuss the understudied role of education for autobiographical reasoning
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