Studying the personal profiles of the polar meaning-making strategies

Introduction. Studying the strategies of making personal meanings from the viewpoint of polar assessment and sense dissonance is an important issue. The study broadens the concept of a meaning-making strategy. The paper gives the definition of polar strategies (developmental and adaptive) and reveals features of their actualization in the situations of life. The study describes the polar meaning-making strategies on the basis of the isomorphism of meanings and personality traits. The empirical study revealed and statistically tested the main index-marker of the polar strategies – the meaningfulness of life by D. A. Leont'ev's Test of Life Meaning Orientations. Along with polar semantic scales of personality traits, this index-marker helps to predict a relevant meaning-making strategy. Methods. The research is based on partial semantic differential of personality traits in the form of bipolar semantic scales. The study employed (a) the Test of Life Meaning Orientations by D. A. Leont'ev, (b) the “Who Am I?” Test by M. Kuhn, (c) the Frustration Tolerance Test by S. Rosenzweig, (d) the Self-Reflection Questionnaire by A. I. Stetsenko, and (e) the Multiple Intelligence Test by H. Gardner. The study involved 145 participants. Results. The personal profile reflected the meaning-making strategy of the experiencing individual. This personal profile as a multifactorial model of possible states of the sense-value sphere of the experiencing subject contained the following parameters: (a) nine authors' scales of partial semantic differential on the basis of bipolar scales of the personal traits; (b) the index of meaningfulness of life (ML) by D. A. Leont'ev's Test of Life Meaning Orientations; (c) the self-reflection level (SRL) by I. A. Stetsenko's Self-Reflection Questionnaire; (d) the self-assessment level (SAL) by M. Kuhn's “Who Am I?” Test; (e) the group conformity coefficient (GCC) by S. Rosenzweig Frustration Test. Discussion. The revealed personal profiles of meaning-making polar strategies differ by age, gender, and profession. In conclusion: the polar scales of partial semantic differential and also the index-marker of meaningfulness of life could be useful for predicting a relevant meaning-making strategy.