The search for meaning in life is part of the human experience. A negative life event may threaten perceptions about meaning in life, such as the benevolence of the world and one's sense of harmony and peace. The authors examined the longitudinal relationship between women's coping with a diagnosis of breast cancer and their self-reported meaning in life 2 years later. Multiple regression analyses revealed that positive strategies for coping predicted significant variance in the sense of meaning in life-feelings of inner peace, satisfaction with one's current life and the future, and spirituality and faith-and the absence of such strategies predicted reports of loss of meaning and confusion (ps < .01). The importance and process of finding meaning in the context of a life stressor are discussed. Keywordscoping; meaning in life; survivor; breast cancer Human beings are motivated to find meaning in their lives (Frankl, 1959(Frankl, /1963. At no time is this more evident than in the aftermath of a traumatic event. Events that pose physical harm or death can shatter one's schemas of a just, purposeful world and an invulnerable self (JanoffBulman, 1989). A cancer diagnosis is one such event (e.g., Alter et al., 1996;Cordova et al., 1995). The diagnosis brings acute emotional distress (Andersen, Anderson, & deProsse, 1989;Epping-Jordan et al., 1999;Maunsell, Brisson, & Deschenes, 1992), and individuals struggle with questions about why the disease struck them, its significance for their future, and the changes that may follow. If patients can somehow answer these questions or address these issues, improved adjustment may follow. Several cross-sectional studies show that patients who report more meaning in their life in the wake of their cancer diagnosis also report less distress (Lewis, 1989; Vickberg, Bovbjerg, Du-Hamel, Currie, & Redd, 2000;Vickberg et al., 2001), though the causal ordering in the relationship is not clear.In the past, the varied conceptualizations of meaning in life-from one's attitude in the face of suffering (Frankl, 1959(Frankl, /1963) to a life story with oneself as the protagonist (Thompson & Janigian, 1988)-have made systematic study of meaning difficult. Theorists have suggested that meaning in life may be a multidimensional construct. One dimension may be satisfaction with "the network of people or things that comprise the immediate world" (Weisman & Worden, 1976, p. 3). For example, Frankl (1959/1963 suggested that meaning in life comes from interactions with the immediate world, the encounters and experiences one takes from the world, and the contributions one makes in return. A second dimension of meaning in life (Garfield, 1973;Hutzell, 1986;Reker & Wong, 1988). Feelings of harmony and integration with life may be important to this dimension (Paloutzian & Ellison, 1982). A third dimension may be the belief that life, and human life in particular, fits into an overall pattern that exists superior to the individual (Paloutzian & Ellison, 1982;Yalom, 1980). This may encompass reli...

Meaning in life is a multi-faceted construct that has been conceptualized in diverse ways. It refers broadly to the value and purpose of life, important life goals, and for some, spirituality. We developed a measure of meaning in life derived from this conceptualization and designed to be a synthesis of relevant theoretical and empirical traditions. Two samples, all cancer patients, provided data for scale development and psychometric study. From exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses the Meaning in Life Scale (MiLS) emerged, and includes four aspects: Harmony and Peace, Life Perspective, Purpose and Goals, Confusion and Lessened Meaning, and Benefits of Spirituality. Supporting data for reliability (internal consistency, test-retest) and construct validity (convergent, discriminant, individual differences) are provided. The MiLS offers a theoretically based and psychometrically sound assessment of meaning in life suitable for use with cancer patients.

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Effective teambuilding is a critical aspect of management. The concept of appreciation of differences through understanding personality types and female/male developmental theory adds previously unexplored dimensions to teambuilding. The authors present a teambuilding model using the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator and female/male developmental theory. “And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences.” (Keirsey & Bates, 1984, p. 1)

Substantial evidence suggest that people tend to be unrealistically optimistic that positive events will happen to them and that negative events will not. However, recent research indicates that under certain conditions they may be unrealistically pessimistic. Variations in the levels of optimism and pessimism experienced towards events are generally given cognitive explanations. A relation between optimism and pessimism and anxiety, a variable related to emotion as well as cognition, was investigated in the present study. An inverse correlation was found between how anxious female students in England felt about certain negative events and how unrealistically optimistic they were about the occurrence of those events. It was concluded that the degree of anxiety experienced toward a negative event may affect the level of unrealistic optimism or pessimism toward it.