Narrative Research on the Meaning in Life of the Elderly

• Main Authors: Pai, Chia-Jui, 白家瑞
• Other Authors: Tien, Hsiu-Lan
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/vp4km4

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 教育心理與輔導學系 === 106 === The purpose of this study was to explore how the elderly constructed their life meaning through their life events and the attitude toward life and death. Narrative research method was applied to collect life stories of 3 elderly participants. Three in-depth interviews, each were 3 to 4 times, were conducted for the participants to narrate their life stories. The narrated texts were analyzed by the holistic-content approach. The results were explored through their life events, and there were seven core issues: (a) Personality traits- positive and optimistic personality traits helped to explore the meaning in life; (b) Career life- elderly people obtained different life meaning from career life directly or indirectly; (c) Life goals- life goals were consistent and life goals create meaning in life naturally; (d) Family- family and children were not an sufficient or the most important meaning in life; (e) Connection with people- elderly established meaning in relationships outside of themselves, and through the connections with important others; (f) Helping others- elderly were satisfied with the sense of self-realization or interpersonal connections through altruistic behaviors; (g) Frustration and transcendence- the original life transformed into different meanings after encountering setbacks. With regard to the attitude toward life and death, four core issues were found in this study: (a) Physical and mental conditions- psychological and physical functions affected the meaning of life; (b) Life review- review of life inspired inner desires and meanings, and the older elderly, the more they were moving towards unity; (c) Aging attitudes- adapting to aging would increase positive aging attitudes, but didn’t bring meaning to life; (d) Death attitudes- death represented the passing of meaning but thinking about death made elderly cherish life more.