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The need for sense-making as a personal resource: conceptualization and scale development

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Abstract

We consider need for sense-making a personal resource and propose that people differ in their levels of this need. We present results of five studies (N = 879) that tested Need for Sense-Making Scale (NSM). The scale is unidimensional, highly reliable, and has satisfactory construct and criterion validity. Need for sense-making was moderately positively related to extroversion, openness, conscientiousness, self-esteem, and sense of control, while negatively related to neuroticism. There was an inverted U-shaped relationship between the need for sense-making and well-being. When individuals were presented with a meaningful task, searching for and presence of meaning sequentially mediate the relationship between need for sense-making and task performance. Need for sense-making predicts work engagement through searching for and presence of meaningful work.

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Data Availability

The data sets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the osf.io repository, https://osf.io/t4dpv/.

Notes

  1. We will use the terms ‘meaningful’ and ‘meaningless’ interchangeably with ‘sense-making’ and ‘making no sense’, respectively.

  2. In Study S1 presented in Supplementary Materials we conducted EFA, which indicated a unidimensional structure of the construct. Additionally, in Study S4 relying on British and Polish samples, we found configural invariance of the unifactorial model.

  3. Studies S2 and S3 presented in the Supplementary Materials show additional tests of the psychometric properties of the need for sense-making scale. Study S2 indicated language invariance of the English and Polish version of the scale. Study S3 showed that the NSM scores are reasonably stable over time.

  4. An additional study presented in Supplementary Materials (S5) further showed that need for sense-making is positively and moderately related to need for cognition, need for closure, preference for consistency, searching for meaning and presence of meaning in life.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Eric R. Igou, Leonard L. Martin, Claudia Vogrincic and Aleksandra Niemyjska for their valuable comments. We also acknowledge that this project arose thanks to the European Association for Social Psychology Summer School that took place at the University of Limerick in Ireland in 2012.

Funding

This study was funded by the National Science Centre in Poland, grant no. UMO-2015/16/S/HS6/00254 awarded to Katarzyna Cantarero.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Social Behavior Research Center, Faculty of Psychology in Wroclaw, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, ul. Ostrowskiego 30b, 53-238, Wroclaw, Poland

    Katarzyna Cantarero

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Katarzyna Cantarero & Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg

  3. Center for Research in Economic Behavior, Faculty of Psychology in Wroclaw, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Wroclaw, Poland

    Agata Gąsiorowska

  4. Faculty in Sopot, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Sopot, Poland

    Bogdan Wojciszke

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  1. Katarzyna Cantarero
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Correspondence to Katarzyna Cantarero.

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Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The research within the project presented here was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Faculty in Sopot, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities.

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Written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the studies.

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Supplementary Information

ESM 1

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Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Need for Sense-Making Scale.

Please indicate how much each of the following statements reflects how you typically are, using the scale provided.

Not at all 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very much.

1. I like it when I stop feeling bored

2. I often get engaged in meaningful activities

3. When I’m in a new situation I can’t avoid searching for meaning in it

4. When I can’t make sense of a situation I usually feel upset

5. When I do something that is meaningless I feel bad

6. When I do something that is meaningful I feel good

7. When I can’t find the purpose of a situation it’s unpleasant

8. Even if a new situation is of little importance I would still try to find the purpose of it

9. I don’t like to feel bored

10. I prefer to do things that are meaningful

11. When I am in a new situation I try to find meaning in it

12. When I make sense of a situation it is pleasant to me

13. Usually, when I do something that is meaningless I want to switch to something else

14. Usually, when I encounter an unclear situation I try to make sense of it

15. When I feel bored I quickly try to do something to change it

16. When things have no meaning it doesn’t bother me at all

17. I don’t pursue purposeful activities

18. I search for activities that serve a purpose

19. I often engage myself in making sense of different situations

20. I tend to search for the meaning of unclear situations until I find it

21. I don’t mind feeling bored

22. I avoid situations that make no sense

23. I don’t like it when things serve no purpose

24. I don’t usually try to find the purpose of things

25. Doing pointless activities doesn’t bother me

26. When I’m in an unexpected situation, the first thing that I want to do is to find meaning in it

27. When I evaluate an activity as pointless I lose interest in doing it

28. I often wonder what the relationships are between things

29. I avoid doing boring things

  1. Note. Reverse coded items are in bold

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Cantarero, K., van Tilburg, W.A.P., Gąsiorowska, A. et al. The need for sense-making as a personal resource: conceptualization and scale development. Curr Psychol 42, 3477–3488 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01637-3

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