14.8 Going Deeper

Now that you have done some thinking about meaning, purpose, and families, this section has some resources for you.

First, there are some resources that the authors used but could not fit into the chapter. If there was something that really piqued your interest and made you want to learn more, it may be listed in this table. This is also a resource for students who may have an assignment to research a particular topic or who need to identify a topic for a final project. Scan through “Want to Learn More?” if you are interested.

Next, you will see a set of reflective questions. You may be assigned these questions as a chapter review, or perhaps you will be using them as discussion questions in class. These questions are designed to help you apply the chapter concepts, develop your sociological imagination, reflect, and use an equity lens. Look over the “Reflective Questions” if you’d like to explore your own thinking more thoroughly.

After that, you will see the same list of key terms that appeared at the start of the chapter. They may help you with your additional exploration or research.

Finally, some chapters include activities that the instructor may use in the classroom.

Want to Learn More?

  • As discussed throughout this chapter, there are many perspectives on purpose and meaning in people’s lives. Here is a short, curated list of videos that explore various perspectives of meaning in life:

Reflective Questions

  1. There are several definitions of meaning and purpose in this chapter. Using one or more of those definitions as a foundation, write your own definition of meaning and purpose.
  2. You answered the “meaning in life” questionnaire in the first section of the chapter. Reflect on what your response means to you. Why do you think that you scored this response? What experiences in your life have contributed?
  3. How does meaning relate to family life?
  4. Choose one of the following topics: creativity, religion, or spirituality. Discuss how it relates to purpose and meaning in family life.
  5. Reflect on strong purpose. Can you apply this concept to your own experiences or observations?
  6. How are loss, trauma, and meaning related?
  7. How do social structures affect meaning and purpose?

Key Terms

  • Existential psychology: an approach that focuses on the “whole” person and the major concerns of death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness.
  • Forced assimilation: the process by which a religious or ethnic minority group is forced to give up their own identity by taking on the cultural characteristics of an established and generally larger community.
  • Generativity: the concern for the future and one’s own contribution to the next generation.
  • Genocide: the deliberate destruction, in whole or in part, by a government or its agents of a racial, sexual, religious, tribal, or political minority. It can involve not only mass murder but also starvation; forced deportation; and political, economic, and biological subjugation.
  • Historical trauma: cumulative emotional and psychological wounding across generations, including the lifespan, which emanates from massive group trauma.
  • Generational trauma: trauma that moves from one generation to the next, as experiences of parents affect the biological, social, mental, or emotional development of their children and sometimes also their grandchildren (also “intergenerational trauma” or “multigenerational trauma”).
  • Meaning: can include the emotional significance of an action or way of being; the intention or reason for doing something; something that we create and feel; closely linked to motivation.
  • Psychosocial model: a framework that emphasizes our relationships and that society’s expectations motivate much of our behavior and the importance of conscious thought.
  • Purpose: can include the aim, goal, or intention of an action; a long-term guiding principle; the impact our life has on the world.

Activity: Grief and Meaning

[content warning: this activity contains mention of suicide]

Anderson Cooper, a broadcast journalist born in 1967, lost his father to heart disease when he was 10 years old. When he was 21 years old, his only sibling died by suicide. Then in 2019, when Anderson was in his early 50s, his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, died. That was when Anderson started a new journey of recognizing and dealing more deeply with his grief over all of his familial loss.

Take a few minutes to explore Anderson’s podcast, and to review the summaries of these three episodes:

  • Mama Shu: Turning Loss into Love (28 minutes)
  • Revisiting Stephen Colbert: Grateful for Grief (52 minutes)
  • Love, Loss, and Parenting (36 minutes)

Choose one of the three episodes to listen to and then answer the questions.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking the play button on the CNN website or by searching for the episode on your preferred podcast application like Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Discussion Questions

  1. Consider Anderson Cooper’s perspective along with the podcast guests. How do the familial roles that the podcasters discussed (child, parent, sibling, and others) impact their relationship with grief?
  2. What examples made the most impact on you in how the speakers connected grief and meaning and in their lives?
  3. In what ways do you connect with what the speakers share on the podcast episode?

Licenses and Attributions for Going Deeper

Open Content, Original

“Going Deeper” by Elizabeth B. Pearce, Aimee Samara Krouskop, and Matthew DeCarlo. License: CC BY 4.0.

License

Contemporary Families: An Equity Lens Prelaunch Edition Copyright © by Elizabeth B. Pearce. All Rights Reserved.

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