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Meaning and coherence

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  1. Two key psychological theorists about the importance of meaning, historically have been:
    1. Viktor Frankl, sense of meaning and logotherapy. Frankl survived a German concentration camp during WWII and observed that those with a reason to live beyond the camp were more likely to survive.
    2. Aaron Antonovsky, salutogenesis (the opposite of pathogensis) and sense of coherence (SOC). Antonovsky investigated the long-term health impacts for German concentration camp survivors. Whilst there considerable health issues, he was struck that some survivors were relatively healthy and investigated further. Those who emerged relatively health appeared to have, what he termed, a sense of coherence.
  2. According to Antonovksy, SOC is “The extent to which one has a pervasive, enduring though dynamic, feeling of confidence that one’s environment is predictable and that things will work out as well as can reasonably be expected.” It has three components:[1]
    1. A sense of comprehensibility:
      1. Do you feel that you can understand things, that things make sense and are not confusing?
      2. Do you feel that things are predictable or can be expected? In other words, do you feel like you know what’s going to happen next, or that you know what’s coming?
    2. A sense of manageability:
      1. Do you feel that things are manageable or within your control, that things can be handled or taken care of?
      2. Do you feel you have the skills or ability, the support, the help, or the resources necessary to take care of things?
    3. A sense of meaningfulness:
      1. Do you feel that things are interesting or fascinating, a source of pleasure or satisfaction?
      2. Do you feel that things are really worth it, that there is good reason or purpose to care about what happens?[2]
  3. Complete the SOC13 and compare with UC student item means (SOC29, Abou-Abou-Hamdan, 2008, N = 355):
Scale M SD Skew Kurtosis
Overall SOC 4.19 0.78 -0.36 0.29
Comprehensibility 3.96 0.90 -0.02 -0.19
Manageability 4.71 0.94 -0.38 -0.10
Meaningfulness 5.01 1.06 -0.62 0.22

Note that in scoring the SOC-13, reverse the scoring for Items 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, then add the items for each factor and work out the means.

Motivation and emotion/Tutorials/Growth psychology

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