Global and situational meanings in the context of trauma: Relations with psychological well-being

Using the meaning making model as our framework, we examined relations among global and appraised meaning and well-being in a sample of 189 college students who had experienced a highly stressful event in the past 5 years. Results suggested that elements of both global meaning (especially self-esteem beliefs) and situational meaning (especially appraisals of the event as violating one's goals) were independently related to a range of well-being outcomes, including depression, anxiety, stress, subjective happiness, and life satisfaction. However, relations varied by specific aspect of well-being. Neither control nor religious beliefs were consistently related to well-being. These results demonstrate the importance of both global and situational meanings in adjusting to life stress. Counselors should attend to both global and situational meanings in the context of helping clients deal with stressful experiences; such attention may focus on bolstering adaptive global beliefs such as self-esteem while also reappraising situational meanings, particularly of the event as violating important global beliefs and goals.