The Construction And Empirical Demonstration Of Meaning Structure Model From The Perspective Of Phenomenological Psychology

Meaning which shows human dignity and value,is an indispensable part of human life.Because of the complex and metaphysical nature of its concept,meaning has long been marginalized by the mainstream research of psychology dominated by positivism.In recent years,the study of meaning has re-set off a new wave.But faced with the problem of unclear definitions and vague concepts,further researches have been hindered.This thesis believes that the source of ambiguity lies in the fusion of signification interpretation and purpose interpretation of meaning,and the inability of scientism psychological methods to guide the definition of meaning efficiently and strictly.This thesis aims at determining the phenomenological nature of meaning in the sense of meaning,namely its definition and structure.Meaning is an indispensable part of human life.Due to the complexity and ambiguity of its concept,as well as the historical factors of mainstream psychology research interest,there is problem of unclear definition of meaning that hinder further research.We argue that the existing concept of meaning confuses meaning as signification and meaning as purpose.We use phenomenological method to analyze the essence of meaning,and build models on this basis to interpret the essential characteristics and occurrence logic of meaning to guide empirical research.The theoretical construction is the first part of this thesis.In study 1,we first distinguish between the sense of meaning and meaning judgment,and find that the essential structure of the sense of meaning is that the individual feels that his behavior and experience have realized something intended or valued,but the structure needs further improvement in study 2.Then,study 2 uses the descriptive phenomenological psychology interview method,through the phenomenological analysis of meaning and reason,it is found that meaning includes two categories: the meaning of volitional act and the meaning of objects that is not in volitional act.The two need to be analyzed separately.Based on Husserl’s will and value phenomenology,study2 introduces the concepts of first-order value and second-order value.The first-order value is the value of the appearance of an entity or a situation so that it is the value of factuality.The second-order value is the value of the existence or being of an entity or a situation so that it is the value of possibility.Based on this,we find that the essence of meaning is "the purposive reason for the existence of an entity or a situation,and the reason is a second-order value.”.The sense of meaning is the realization of the second order value,and it has the essential characteristics of horizontality,attachment to personality,and the possibility salience as the precondition for occurrence.Then,we construct the meaning structure model,which explains adaptive functions,emerging conditions,emerging routes,promoting methods of the sense of meaning,and reinterprets the sense of meaning and the meaning in life.We point out the three logical conditions of the occurrence of sense of meaning: the possibility salience,raw materials of first-order value,and the second-order value judgment,and elucidate their connotation,composition,and influence on the sense of meaning.The meaning structural model can help to guide the maintenance,repairment,and generation of the sense of meaning.Empirical verification is the second part of this thesis,which serves to verify the validity of the meaning structure model,and it puts forward two research hypotheses.Study 3 test hypothesis1 that the feeling of special is a typical feature of something of second-order value.In experiment,the participants who were asked to recall and narrate something special to them had significantly higher sense of meaning than the control group,and there was no significant difference from the meaning activation group that recalled and narrated meaningful events,which supports hypothesis1.Study 4 test hypothesis 2 that the influence of first-order value realization on the sense of meaning will be moderated by the individual’s acknowledgment of this value.We controlled goal achievement(success/failure)and goal recognition(self-goal/others-goal)through experiments,and the results showed that the sense of meaning in life induced by the realization of self-selected goals is higher than that induced by other-selected goals,and the opposite is true when the pursuit of goals failure.The influence of other-selected goals on the meaning in life is moderated by the individual’s acknowledgment of the goal,which supports hypothesis 2.We have discussed why previous conceptualization of meaning can effectively explain empirical research despite its ambiguity and defects,and review and comment on the existent meaning theories.This study mainly explores the formal nature of meaning,and future research could explore more content aspects of meaning and associate the current model to the broad psychological concepts.