Parental bereavement and the loss of purpose in life as a function of interdependent self-construal.

Jinhyung Kim,Joshua A. Hicks

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01078

Abstract

Children are often inextricably linked to their parents’ hopes and dreams. As such, the loss of a child often represents one of the most traumatic experiences possible. The current research explores how this specific loss relates to one’s sense of purpose in life. We further explore whether the loss of a child is particularly detrimental to one’s sense of purpose for highly interdependent parents. Analyses of parents from the Midlife in the United States data set revealed, as expected, that the loss of child negatively predicts one’s sense of purpose in life, and that this effect is most pronounced for parents high in interdependent self-construal. Potential mechanisms and implications of the present findings are discussed.

Highlights

People from diverse backgrounds commonly believe that children provide life with meaning and fulfillment (Toulemon, 1996; Stanley et al, 2003)
A set of empirical data and qualitative investigations demonstrate that bereaved parents often fail to find meaning in the loss experience for an extended period of time after the loss of their child, and that these parents report higher mental distress and lower physical health compared to those who successfully construct a sense of meaning in the loss experience (Lehman et al, 1987; Braun and Berg, 1994; Murphy et al, 2003; Keesee et al, 2008; Lichtenthal et al, 2013; see Park, 2010 for a review)
We suggest that individual differences in interdependent self-construal play a pivotal role in the extent to which bereaved parents find it difficult to extract purpose in life from the loss experience

Summary

Introduction

People from diverse backgrounds commonly believe that children provide life with meaning and fulfillment (Toulemon, 1996; Stanley et al, 2003). Corroborating these beliefs, a series of studies recently demonstrated that parents experience more positive emotions, less negative emotions, and greater life satisfaction and meaning in life through child-care activities compared to non-parents (Ashton-James et al, 2013; Nelson et al, 2013; see McLanahan and Adams, 1987; Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004; Evenson and Simon, 2005; Kohler et al, 2005; White and Dolan, 2009, for supporting and contradictory findings). While prior research has focused primarily on how situational meaning and a sense of purpose serve as coping resources following the loss of

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