Finding silver linings: Meaning making as a compensatory response to negative experiences.

A Qualitative Investigation into the Cultural Master Narrative for Overcoming Trauma and Adversity in the United Kingdom

10.31234/osf.io/ekbn6 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Laura Blackie ◽

Jade Colgan ◽

Stephanie McDonald ◽

Kate C. McLean

Keyword(s):

Online Survey ◽

Meaning Making ◽

Life Experiences ◽

Master Narrative ◽

Narrative Psychology ◽

Negative Experiences ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

The Uk ◽

And Function ◽

Insight Into

Research in the field of narrative psychology has found that redemption – a narrative sequence in which people recount emotionally negative experiences as having positive endings – is a useful mechanism for coping with adversity. Redemption has been viewed as a cultural master narrative in North America, providing individuals with a socially valued script for narrating challenging life experiences. Presently little research has examined the presence and function of the redemption narrative outside of North American contexts. The aim of this qualitative study, therefore, was to identify themes in UK individuals’ narratives of trauma and adversity to gain insight into the content of the master narrative for meaning-making in the UK. Sixty-Five participants (57 females, Mage = 21.97, SD = 7.24) with little to no experience of lifetime adversity were recruited into an online survey. Participants answered open-ended questions adopting the perspective of a survivor from a selected UK national tragedy, focusing on how they felt survivors could recover from trauma. We identified two themes in our thematic analysis that were relevant to recovery: recuperation and redemption. Recuperation was most commonly reported, it was described as a gradual lessening of symptoms over time and the ability to cope with the lasting emotional and physical scars. Our findings suggest that redemption is not necessarily the dominant cultural script in the UK for guiding recovery in the aftermath of trauma.

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Meaning-making among intentionally childless women

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies ◽

10.24972/ijts.2019.38.1.140 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 38 (1) ◽

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Research ◽

Social Constructivism ◽

Meaning Making ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Main Category ◽

Negative Experiences ◽

Childless Women ◽

The World ◽

Feminist Theories ◽

Intentional Childlessness

This paper is a summary of a qualitative research project that focused upon meaning-making processes as described by intentionally childless women. A grounded theory exploration, it involved semi-structured interviews with 30 cisgendered women aged 27–61 who chose childlessness early in life. Based on principles inherent to social constructivism and feminist theories, the subjective voices of the participants were analyzed as normative expressions of female identity. The main category that accompanied intentional childlessness was a sense of freedom. In addition, two additional thematic categories focused on ways the women view their contributions to their communities and experience belonging and a sense of meaning in the world. Some negative experiences associated with being intentionally childless were also reported. The majority of the women in this study noted that they feel no regret or have no second thoughts about their decision, while a third of the participants spontaneously noted that they experience their lives as superlative.

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Identifying Positive Features of the Sadness Prototype

Perceptual and Motor Skills ◽

10.1177/0031512520942389 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 127 (6) ◽

pp. 1015-1032

Author(s):

Mariko Shirai ◽

Masato Nagamine

Keyword(s):

Meaning Making ◽

Emotional Experience ◽

Recognition Task ◽

Adaptive Function ◽

Negative Experiences ◽

Loved One ◽

Characteristic Features ◽

False Recognitions ◽

Positive Functions ◽

The Relationship

Sadness, an emotional experience of daily life, is typically associated with negative experiences such as the loss of a loved one. However, sadness also has an adaptive function, as it can help us respond appropriately to environmental demands. While previous research has revealed positive functions of sadness, it is unclear whether laypeople recognize any positive aspects of sadness. In the present three-part study, we aimed to identify whether laypeople conceptualize any positive features of sadness. In Part 1, we asked Japanese participants ( n = 122) to describe the features of “sadness,” and their responses revealed 37 different sadness features, some of which were assumed to be positive aspects (e.g., meaning making). In Part 2, we asked a second group of Japanese participants ( n = 140) to rate the centrality of each previously named feature, and we then classified the features into either central or peripheral sadness features. At this point, participants reported positive aspects of sadness (e.g., co-occurrence of positive emotion). To confirm the differences between central and peripheral features, in Part 3 we examined automatic responses toward these features from a third group of Japanese participants ( n = 91) and demonstrated the relationship between the concept of sadness and its characteristic features. We presented these participants with a subset of the features of sadness and then asked them to complete a recall and recognition task. As expected, they recalled central features more often than peripheral features of sadness, and they generated false recognitions to central features. In conclusion, this three-part study indicated that there are positive features related to the function of sadness that laypeople can identify in their mental lexicon.

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Minimizing Carry-Over Effects After Treatment Failure and Maximizing Therapeutic Outcome

Zeitschrift für Psychologie ◽

10.1027/2151-2604/a000180 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 222 (3) ◽

pp. 171-178 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Mareile Hofmann ◽

Nathalie Wrobel ◽

Simon Kessner ◽

Ulrike Bingel

Keyword(s):

Treatment Failure ◽

Human Subjects ◽

Subsequent Treatment ◽

Clinical Samples ◽

Administration Route ◽

Healthy Human ◽

Negative Experiences ◽

Analgesic Treatment ◽

Balanced Design ◽

Carry Over

According to experimental and clinical evidence, the experiences of previous treatments are carried over to different therapeutic approaches and impair the outcome of subsequent treatments. In this behavioral pilot study we used a change in administration route to investigate whether the effect of prior treatment experience on a subsequent treatment depends on the similarity of both treatments. We experimentally induced positive or negative experiences with a topical analgesic treatment in two groups of healthy human subjects. Subsequently, we compared responses to a second, unrelated and systemic analgesic treatment between both the positive and negative group. We found that there was no difference in the analgesic response to the second treatment between the two groups. Our data indicate that a change in administration route might reduce the influence of treatment history and therefore be a way to reduce negative carry-over effects after treatment failure. Future studies will have to validate these findings in a fully balanced design including larger, clinical samples.

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Emotional Impact Feedback Changes How We Remember Negative Autobiographical Experiences

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000042 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 57 (5) ◽

pp. 354-359 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Melanie K. T. Takarangi ◽

Deryn Strange

Keyword(s):

Well Being ◽

The Other ◽

Personal Perspective ◽

Emotional Impact ◽

Potential Mechanism ◽

Negative Experiences ◽

Negative Memory ◽

The Relationship ◽

Negative Memories ◽

Over Time

When people are told that their negative memories are worse than other people’s, do they later remember those events differently? We asked participants to recall a recent negative memory then, 24 h later, we gave some participants feedback about the emotional impact of their event – stating it was more or less negative compared to other people’s experiences. One week later, participants recalled the event again. We predicted that if feedback affected how participants remembered their negative experiences, their ratings of the memory’s characteristics should change over time. That is, when participants are told that their negative event is extremely negative, their memories should be more vivid, recollected strongly, and remembered from a personal perspective, compared to participants in the other conditions. Our results provide support for this hypothesis. We suggest that external feedback might be a potential mechanism in the relationship between negative memories and psychological well-being.

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