Honors Theses

Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Stefan Schulenberg

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

The experience of a traumatic event such as a natural disaster can often lead individuals to suffer a variety of negative sequelae, including the development of posttraumatic stress symptoms. However, certain positive psychological constructs like meaning and resilience have been shown to mitigate these consequences. The purpose of this study was to explore the contributions of meaning and resilience to the life satisfaction of individuals (N = 55) impacted by 2017’s Hurricane Harvey. It was hypothesized that not only would meaning and resilience be significantly and positively related to life satisfaction but that meaning would contribute more to the prediction of life satisfaction than resilience. Significant positive relationships were found between meaning and life satisfaction (r = .51, p ≤ .05) and between resilience and life satisfaction (r = .32, p ≤ .05) as was expected. After conducting a multiple regression analysis, meaning was also found to significantly predict life satisfaction (β = .46, t(54) = 3.48, p = .001, pr2 = .19), and did so to a greater extent than resilience (β = .13, t(54) = .97, p = .34, pr2 = .02), which was not a statistically significant predictor in this instance. The implications of these findings are discussed, along with study strengths, limitations, and directions for research.

Accessibility Status

Searchable text

Included in

Psychology Commons

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.