Nostalgia motivates pursuit of important goals by increasing meaning in life

This research focused on existential and motivational implications of the emotion of nostalgia. Nostalgia (relative to control) increased meaning in life, which, in turn, galvanised intentions to pursue one's most important goal (Experiment 1) and to pursue one's most important, but not least important, goal (Experiment 2). The basic pattern held in two cultures (British and Danish) independently of positive affect. This is the first evidence that nostalgia has specific motivational consequences (i.e., pursuit of more, but not less, important goals) and transmits these consequences via meaning in life. Also, this is the first evidence that meaning is associated with specific motivational consequences. Discussion considers the relevance of the findings for the emotion and motivation literatures.     

The meaning profiles of anxiety and depression: similarities and differences in two age groups

ABSTRACT

The distinctiveness of anxiety and depression is discussed concerning their nature, definitions, uses, manifestations and determinants. The objective was to examine the difference and similarity of anxiety and depression by applying the psychosemantic approach, which is a theory and methodology based on analysing the cognitive processes applied in communicating meanings. In Study 1, there were 760 participants of both genders, 23–31 years old. They were administered the Meanings Test, which yields the respondent’s meaning profile, and one of seven anxiety scales or one of three depression scales. Significant correlations between the meaning profiles and the anxiety or depression scales were summarised and compared. In Study 2, there were 78 individuals over 65 years old who were administered the Meanings Test plus an anxiety or depression scale. The findings for anxiety and depression were compared within and across age groups. The results yielded two distinct meaning profiles for anxiety and depression in the two age groups. The anxiety profile indicated more focusing on one’s internal world. whereas the depression profile indicated focusing both on the personal and the interpersonally shared reality. The conclusion was that anxiety and depression are different constructs that need to be considered as separate theoretically and practically.     

Posttraumatic Growth in Individuals With Chronic Illness: The Role of Social Support and Meaning Making

This study aimed to assess the predictive nature of social support, meaning making (presence of meaning and search for meaning), and demographic factors on perceived posttraumatic growth (PTG) in a sample of adults living with chronic illness (N = 110). Regression analyses indicated that presence of meaning and gender served as the strongest predictors, together accounting for 22% of the variance in PTG. Presence of meaning also moderated the relationship between social support and PTG, supporting the unique contribution of meaning making on PTG.     

Is Jessie right to end her life?

Presupposing that our consideration of ethical issues can be enriched by examining literary works, this paper focuses on Marsha Norman's play ‘night, Mother. The play describes the last hour and a half in the life of Jessie, a young woman who decides to die by suicide. Before ending her life, Jessie explains to her mother her reasons for her suicide. In the context of the play, these are presented as quite weighty and as, perhaps, justifying her decision. Scholarly research on the play has also treated Jessie's suicide favorably. In this paper I argue that Jessie, and people in similar conditions, are wrong to die by suicide. Among other points, I criticize Jessie's arguments from the impossibility to improve life; the assured termination of suffering; the badness of the world; and the right for suicide. I also criticize arguments in the scholarly literature that view Jessie's suicide favorably, such as the arguments from independence, heroism, authenticity, and emotional closeness.     

免费师范生职业认同感与生命意义的关系

该研究采用师范生职业认同感量表和生命态度剖面图(LAP)中的"生命意义的追寻与肯定"分量表,对258名一至三年级的免费师范生进行问卷调查,探讨免费师范生职业认同感与生命意义的关系。结果表明,免费师范生职业认同感及其各因子均与生命意义及其各因子呈显著正相关;高中低不同职业认同感组的生命意义及其各因子的组别效应显著;免费师范生职业认同感的职业效能、职业意愿与期望、职业价值三因子是生命意义的显著预测变量。     

Search for meaning,finding meaning and adjustment in women following miscarriage: A longitudinal study

Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore the associations between meaning making and psychological adjustment in 127 women who experienced a miscarriage.

Design: A longitudinal and controlled study design was employed.

Main outcome measures: Meaning-making variables and distress outcomes were examined at four, seven and 16?weeks after miscarriage, in two groups of women, one who had medical investigations of the cause of their loss, and a control group receiving standard care.

Results: Search for meaning was very common and it declined with time after miscarriage. By seven weeks post-loss, more than half the women reported that they had found meaning/understood why the miscarriage happened. Providing information about the cause of the loss was associated with finding meaning. A decline in the search for meaning and finding meaning at seven weeks post-miscarriage, predicted levels of distress at 16?weeks, whilst controlling for the initial distress and for significant background factors.

Conclusions: This study provides support for the notion that search for meaning is very common following negative life events, such as miscarriage, and that finding meaning is important in many peoples’ process of adjustment. Providing information about the cause of the loss facilitates finding meaning.     

I.C.E. World Information,Consciousness, Energy

There is underway a worldwide shift in society from an industrial‐based to an information‐based metaindustrial way of living and working. This will require innovative organization and management. Three factors are described as propellers of this industrial transformation: technological innovations, technology transfer, and global marketplace. Trends in post‐industrial organizations are mapped out, and a profile of metaindustrial organization culture is created.?     

The Oneness of Objective Reality and Spiritual Truth

Spirituality and science discover that they are both motivated by the desire to know, and realize that mere sensory perception does not guarantee the truth of knowledge. The concepts that emerge in the new sciences show a striking similarity to the ideas that come to the mind of spiritually intuitive persons, giving rise to the hope that with the recognition that at the bottom objective reality and spiritual truth are one, the historic opposition (or feud) between science and spirituality can at last be overcome.     

New Grounds for a Re-Union Between Science and Spirituality

Science is recovering its basic mission of making sense of the world. As a search for meaning it is similar to spirituality. The difference between science and spirituality is not in the end they seek, but in the way they seek it. Science uses rational thinking in analyzing and interpreting what experience and experiment discloses, whereas spirituality combines experience with the immediacy of an intuition that speaks to a reality that underlies the world conveyed by the senses. In our day science and spirituality, the great streams of human endeavor, are on a converging course. They share the realization that the cosmos is not a domain of unconscious matter moving about in passive space; it is a dynamic, self-evolving whole, integral at all scales and in all domains. This convergence is important in itself, and it is also important in regard to its consequences. On the one hand it tells us that our intuitive insights about the nature of life and reality are not illusory: they are confirmed in their essence by cutting-edge science. On the other, it offers motivation for entering on a positive path to our common future because wholeness is a defining characteristic of the kind of civilization that could overcome the problems created by the mechanistic manipulative rationality of today's dominant civilization.

     

Social Values and the Creative Ethos in the Greek Knowledge Society: A Phenomenological Analysis

Departing from Richard Florida's theory of the Creative Class, this article attempts to delineate the Greek creative ethos. The research involved in-depth interviews with knowledge and service workers in Greece. Adopting an existential view of creativity, which emphasizes the natural human inclination to create and engage with one's acts, and using valuing processes as tools to analyze workers’ discourses opens up the elements that underpin workers’ efforts to experience authenticity across life spheres and construct the meaning of work and good living. These efforts were sketched against a backdrop of adverse lived realities and intersected with anxious, alienated, and disempowered constructions of selfhood. Contrary to Florida's claims, the present article goes beyond positions of more or less creative workers and examines the various meanings of creativity underpinned by different lived realities.