Personal reminiscence styles and adaptation to bereavement: how meaning mediates their relationship

Abstract

Objectives

Personal reminiscence styles are known to influence a person’s well-being, but research regarding their impact on bereavement outcomes is limited. Based on previous findings, we assumed ruminative and reflective reminiscence styles to be associated with feelings of grief and personal growth, and that meaning-making efforts and the degree of having meaning-made of losing a loved one potentially mediate these relationships.

Methods

The final study sample consisted of 198 participants aged between18 and 75 years (M_age = 40.58, SD = 39.0), 83.3% were female. In a first step, we ran separate mediation models to examine the associations between reminiscence styles, processes of making meaning of the loss and bereavement. Based on these results, we build a parsimonious, inclusive pathway model.

Results

Our findings indicate that a ruminative reminiscence style is related to feelings of grief and personal growth through its associations with meaning-made. A reflective reminiscence style, in contrast, is associated with feelings of grief through its relation to meaning-making efforts. Moreover, a reflective reminiscence style is directly related to personal growth.

Conclusion

Findings are discussed regarding their implications for both areas of research — autobiographical remembering and adaptation to bereavement, as well as their applicability in clinical settings.

Keywords:

• Autobiographical memory
• reminiscence
• grief
• personal growth
• meaning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes

1 There are different terms to describe growth after having experienced a stressful or traumatic life event such as posttraumatic growth (Calhoun et al., 2010), personal growth (Feigelman et al., 2009) or stress-related growth (Park, 2010). In this study, we will use the term personal growth or just growth, because the loss of a loved one does not always constitute a traumatic event. Notwithstanding the differences, the research between the fields is overlapping and it serves as a substantial theoretical basis for this study.

2 Cappeliez and O’Rourke (2006) grouped bitterness revival and boredom reduction under self-negative reminiscences; Harris et al. (2014) used the term ruminative and Webster (2003) reactive/loss. Problem-solving and identity were grouped into self-positive (Cappeliez & O’Rourke, 2006), reflective (Harris et al., 2014) or proactive/growth ways of reminiscence (Webster, 2003).

3 At the time of data collection, approval by the ethical board of [anonymized for review] was not required for studies in which data collection was completely anonymous. Data was collected online. Participants were provided with detailed information about the study participation and data protection. They could only participate after giving their consent (opt-in approach). Data was collected completely anonymous.

4 We did not use the second subscale of the Integration of Stressful Life Events Scale (Holland, 2016), namely footing in the world, because the items more closely tap distress rather than making meaning or integration of loss (cf. Park & George, 2013).