| Abstract: | This doctoral thesis deals with the issue of the relationship between meaning and forms of coping with stress. In the presented work, the meaning has been included within the framework of structural and functional perspective. The structural perspective includes four aspects of meaning - accessibility, differentiation, elaboration and coherence of meanings in the system of goals. The functional dimension concerns the sense of purposefulness of life. Within this dimension, the conviction about the purposefulness of life and a sense of accomplishment were distinguished. As far as the coping area is concerned, it has been included in relation to the predisposition perspective and the perspective of strategies undertaken in the face of everyday stress. Within the predisposition perspective, a style focused on task and emotions was included and avoidance as well as proactivity and preventiveness. As part of the strategy perspective taken in the face of everyday stress, active, emotional, avoidant and helpless strategies were included.
The general problem of the relationship between meaning and coping was reduced to five more specific problem areas. The first of them concerns the occurrence of relationships, distinguished by structural and functional aspects of meaning with particular forms of coping, taken from a predisposition perspective. The next one refers to determining whether functional aspects of meaning show a stronger relationship with coping predispositions than structural aspects. In the next problem area, the goal was to check whether the higher structural aspects of meaning show stronger relationships with the predispositions of coping with stress than the structurally lower aspects of meaning. As part of the next research objective, the issue of the occurrence of dependencies of the distinguished categories of coping strategies, taken against the stress of everyday life, on particular aspects of meaning was raised. The last of the problem areas concerns the issue of the mediating role of functional aspects of meaning within the dependence of the level of application of individual coping strategies on the structural aspects of meaning.
Based on the research carried out on a sample of 152 people, it was established that the meaning, taking into account the multiplicity of ways of its recognition - the multiplicity of distinguished aspects as part of the structural and functional dimension - to the widest extent it is related to the predispositions of an active and emotional character, and to a very limited
extent, concerning only one aspect of the functional dimension, is associated with a style focused on avoidance. In addition, it was established that the meaning is recognized from a functional perspective, it is more expressively related to the predispositions of coping with an active, emotional and avoidant character than the significance captured under the structural perspective. It was also found that there are no grounds to formulate an unambiguous statement that the aspects of significance regarding higher levels of organization show stronger connections with coping predispositions than the aspects of meaning related to lower levels of organization. The study also showed that the level of application of active, emotional, avoidance and helplessness strategies to everyday stress depends on all the functional aspects of meaning included in the work, that is the sense of purposefulness of life, conviction about purposefulness of life and sense of fulfillment. All of the functional aspects of significance are factors conducive to taking active strategies under the stress of everyday life, while they limit the level of emotional, avoidance and helpless strategies in such situations. All of the structural aspects of meaning should be considered as variables, conducive to the occurrence of active strategies under the stress of everyday life. Only two of the structural aspects of meaning in the form of the availability of meanings and the differentiation of meanings in the system of goals should be treated as variables responsible for limiting the level of occurrence of emotional strategies. Three of the structural aspects of meaning in the form of the availability of meanings, linking meanings and the coherence of meanings in the system of goals should be treated as variables responsible for limiting avoidance strategies of everyday strategies. Three of the structural aspects of meaning, namely those regarding the availability of meanings and differentiation of meanings, as well as the coherence of meanings in the system of goals, should be treated as variables important for limiting the level of taking into account the stress of everyday life in the strategy of helplessness. Both the level of taking active, emotional, avoidance and helpless coping strategies in a more expressive way depends on the functional aspects of meaning than on its structural aspects. Regarding most of the detected relations concerning the dependence of the level of application on the stress of everyday life on the distinguished coping strategies from the structural aspects of meaning, it was found that the functional aspects of meaning play a mediating role in these relations. |