Understanding the dynamics of the meaning-making process in everyday life: contributions from intensive longitudinal studies — ASN Events
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  3. Understanding the dynamics of the meaning-making process in everyday life: contributions from intensive longitudinal studies

Understanding the dynamics of the meaning-making process in everyday life: contributions from intensive longitudinal studies (#48)

Michela Zambelli 1 , Semira Tagliabue 2 , Nicole Long Ki Fung 3 , Dwight C. K. Tse 3 4 , Helene H. Fung 3 , Zhixuan Lin 3 , Yein Kim 5 , Marcela Weber 6 7 , Victoria A. Torres 8 , Erin M. Buchanan 9 , Stefan E. Schulenberg 5 , Jeffrey M. Pavlacic 5
  1. Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy
  2. Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Brescia, Italy
  3. Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  4. School of Psychological Sciences and Health, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
  5. The Clinical-Disaster Research Center, The University of Mississippi, Oxford, USA
  6. South Central Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System, Little Rock, USA
  7. University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, USA
  8. Warriors Research Institute, Baylor Scott & White Health, Waco, USA
  9. Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, Harrisburg, USA

Symposium Summary:

The experience of life meaningfulness is a “quality of everyday existence” (King et al., 2006, p.181), as such, it is subjective to daily fluctuations, as it is nurtured by mundane life experiences and influenced by contextual factors and unexpected events (Heintzelman & King, 2019; Park, 2010). Considering that the meaning-making process is widely recognized as a situational process that grounds in everyday life, it is surprising that most studies are currently conducted with cross-sectional designs, by which only trait-level investigations are possible.

The present symposium would like to open a reflection about the potentiality of intensive longitudinal designs (ILD, Bolger & Laurenceau, 2013) to observe dynamics of the meaning-making functioning in the real life. The symposium includes three paper presentations.

Fung et al. conducted an experience sampling method to investigate how older adults find meaningfulness by engaging in everyday activities such as physical ones. Kim et al. examined the trajectories of meaning-making and association with illbeing symptoms among international students across six months of COVID-19 with a weekly design. Zambelli & Tagliabue investigated the daily dynamics of searching and finding a comprehensible, significant, and purposeful life among emerging and young adults living the COVID-19 pandemic with a daily diary study.

The presentations offer an overview of different IL designs (daily diary, ESM, weekly design) and statistical techniques (dynamic SEM, hierarchical linear modelling, latent growth modelling) to investigate the meaning-making functioning across different population targets living their everyday life in different contextual situations. Methodological implications of ILDs application will be discussed. Insights from ILD designs might lay the foundation to the development of meaning-based interventions for the promotion of well-being and flourishing.


Symposium Presentation 1: Examining the relationship between frequency of engagement and perceived meaningfulness of the activity in older adults

Presenter: Nicole Long Ki Fung

Abstract: In the flow literature, vital engagement theory (Nakamura & Csikzentmihalyi, 2003) posits a mutually enhancing relationship between activity meaningfulness and engagement (absorption), such that more engagement in an enjoyable activity predicts greater perceived meaningfulness in it. This experience sampling study examined the relationship between older adults’ perceived meaningfulness and their engagement patterns of everyday activities. We recruited 341 community-dwelling older adults (Aged 60 – 89, M=67.12, SD=5.18, 42.2% male). Participants filled out a survey three times a day for ten days. They reported the type of activity they did between now and the previous survey. The types of activities included work, social, physical, cognitive, self-care, volunteering, and passive-leisure activity. Participants also reported how meaningful (0-100) and engaging (0-100) the activities were. The most meaningful activity was volunteering (M=84.43, SD=14.42), followed by physical (M=78.37, SD=16.41) and social activity (M=78.31, SD=15.42). The least meaningful activity was passive-leisure activity (M=66.14, SD=19.47). We counted how many times participants engaged in each type of activities to obtain the frequency of engagement. Controlling for the total number of all activities by each participant, hierarchical linear modelling revealed that the frequency of engaging in physical activity was positively associated with the perceived meaningfulness of the activity (b=0.37, p=.008). On the other hand, frequency of passive-leisure activity was negatively associated with perceived meaningfulness (b=-0.63, p<.001). Older adults found physical activity (M=79.94, SD=15.52) more engaging than passive-leisure activity (M=69.47, SD=18.01). The association between frequency of engagement and perceived meaningfulness in physical and passive-leisure activity remained significant even after controlling for subjective engagement rating. Frequency of engagement was not related to perceived meaningfulness for other types of activity. The findings underscore the nuance of finding meaningfulness by engagement in everyday activities among older adults. More frequent engagement may make a meaningful activity more meaningful, but a non-meaningful activity even less meaningful.

Symposium Presentation 2: Trajectories and themes of meaning in life among international students early in the COVID-19 pandemic: A mixed methods study

Presenter: Yein Kim

Abstract: Objective: International students face unique COVID-19-related stressors, such as financial aid loss, limited social support, and discrimination (e.g., verbal harassment, physical assault). Prior research shows that perceived meaning and purpose in life fluctuate as often as daily, and that meaning-making is one of the most consistent predictors of resilience to traumatic stress. Accordingly, the current study examined trajectories of meaning-making in international students during early stages of the pandemic.

Method: International students (N = 42) at a rural U.S. university were surveyed weekly for 14 weeks. The survey included the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ), subscales on Presence of Meaning (MLQ-P) and Search for Meaning (MLQ-S). It also included questionnaires on past-week traumatic stress symptoms (PCL-5) and past-week depression/anxiety (DASS-21).

Results: Latent growth mixture modeling will be utilized to examine international students’ trajectories of meaning-making over the course of the first six months of COVID-19. Depression, anxiety, and traumatic stress symptoms will then be compared by latent class to identify the meaning-making trajectories with the least and most symptoms.

Implications: Our study furthers the literature on trajectories of meaning/purpose by examining an understudied, marginalized population. Findings have practical applications for intervention and prevention work to enhance meaning-making during ongoing disasters, particularly among international students.

Symposium Presentation 3: Unboxing the dynamics of the meaning-making process based on the tripartite view of meaning: insights from an intensive longitudinal study

Presenter: Michela Zambelli

Abstract: The process of meaning-making grounds in the situational experiences lived by individuals that push them toward searching and finding meaning in life (King & Hicks, 2021). In recent years, a scholar consensus emerged in defining meaning in life as the experience of a life that is comprehensible, significant, and purposeful. Empirical evidence of the tripartite view of meaning has been obtained from cross-sectional studies (Martela & Steger, 2022); however, the dynamics sustaining the process of searching and finding meaning in life, in its tripartite view, has not been investigated yet. The present work aims to uncover how people build a meaningful life, that is comprehensible, significant, and purposeful in the context of daily life.

318 young Italian adults (Mage= 25.4, DS = 4.04; 72.5% woman) participated in 14-day diary study, completing daily questionnaires on the perception of presence and search for comprehension, significance, and purpose in life (SMILE; Zambelli & Tagliabue, 2022). Multilevel Dynamic Structural Equation Models (Hamaker et al., 2018) were applied to examine within-person dynamics (i.e., stability, concurrent association, reciprocal influence) controlling for the trait level. Results showed that average levels of presence and search in all the three meaning dimensions were quite stable, with autoregressive effects between .25 - .42. Daily presence and search for meaning fluctuated together at the daily level as indicated by positive concurrent associations (rcomprehension=.40; rsignificance=.55; rpurpose=.72). Finally, presence and search for meaning reciprocally influenced each other over days, such that an increase in the presence of meaning in life produced an increase in the search for meaning the following day (βcomprehension=.08; βsignificance=.20; βpurpose=.15) and vice versa (βcomprehension=.09; βsignificance=.08; βpurpose=.08). Overall, results highlight that the meaning-making is a situational process that activates daily, and that the construction of the three meaning components is based on similar daily dynamics.

  1. Bolger, N., & Laurenceau, J. (2013). Intensive Longitudinal Methods: An Introduction to Diary and Experience Sampling Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049731513495458
  2. King, L. A., Hicks, J. A., Krull, J. L., & Del Gaiso, A. K. (2006). Positive affect and the experience of meaning in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(1), 179–196. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.1.179
  3. King, L. A., & Hicks, J. A. (2021). The science of meaning in life. Annual Review of Psychology, 72, 561-584. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-072420-122921
  4. Martela, F., & Steger, M. F. (2022). The role of significance relative to the other dimensions of meaning in life – an examination utilizing the three dimensional meaning in life scale (3DM). The Journal of Positive Psychology, 00(00), 1–21.
  5. Nakamura, J., & Csikzentmihalyi, M. (2003). The construction of meaning through vital engagement. In C. L. M. Keyes & J. Haidt (Eds.), Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well-lived (pp. 83–104). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10594-004
  6. Hamaker, E. L., Asparouhov, T., Brose, A., Schmiedek, F., & Muthén, B. (2018). At the Frontiers of Modeling Intensive Longitudinal Data: Dynamic Structural Equation Models for the Affective Measurements from the COGITO Study. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 53(6), 820–841. https://doi.org/10.1080/00273171.2018.1446819
  7. Heintzelman, S. J., & King, L. A. (2019). Routines and Meaning in Life. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45(5), 688–699. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218795133
  8. Park, C. L. (2010). Making Sense of the Meaning Literature: An Integrative Review of Meaning Making and Its Effects on Adjustment to Stressful Life Events. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2), 257–301. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018301
  9. Zambelli, M., & Tagliabue S. (2022). The Situational Meaning in Life Evaluation (SMILE): development and validation studies. Under review.
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