The adaptive cycle of meaning making: development and preliminary evaluation of a self-report scale

Abstract

Meaning in life has long been established as a core component of individual well-being, making it a topic of great importance within psychological research. Advancements in psychological studies of meaning in life are limited by the availability of appropriate measurement tools. To date, several measures of meaning in life have been developed. However, the existing measures fail to capture the full complexity of the processes involved in making meaning in life, particularly with regards to acknowledging the necessary destruction and reconstruction of meaning in life frameworks in order to develop increasingly complex systems of meaning in life. The current project details the development and preliminary evaluation of the Adaptive Cycle of Meaning Making (ACMM), a new self-report scale aimed at addressing this limitation in existing measures. Informed by the theoretical framework of the adaptive cycle, the ACMM posits a dynamic conceptualization of the growth, conservation, release, and reorganization phases of meaning-making.