Prychological Reports, 1976, 39, 467-480. @ Psychological Reports 1976

DEVELOPMENT OF A LIFE-MEANINGS SURVEY

SnWART B. SHAPIRO

Unwersity of California, Santa Barbara

Summary.-This paper's purpose was to describe an interview which pur- ports to survey some important areas in life meanings. The "Life-meanings Survey" is a semi-structured, depth interview which has been used to assess the outcomes of various humanistically oriented, confluent educational projects. It attempts to reach a deeper, more personal level of response than the usual paper- and-pencil personality, attitude, or achievement measures by probing into rela- tively enduring effects which make a difference in the lives of the participants. It investigates some of the major philosophical-psychological domains of what is substantially worth believing in, doing and living for, and what is a coherent, useful philosophy of life. Divided into five areas of meaning, the interview technique includes intentionality, significance, symbols, sense and the meaniag- ful impact of a given project. Research results are reported from three studies: the effects of confluent education on high school students, the outcomes of a humanistically oriented medical program, and the results of a 1-yr. program in confluent education for school administrators. These studies indicate that quantitative assessments can be made using this instrument Rough reliability and validity measures of the interview have also indicated its usefulness and stability.

One of the critical problems of our time concerns the building of meaning- ful lives in a humane society. As I see it, there has been an increasing concen- tration of forces, political and social, e.g., Watergate, Vietnam, changing of traditional values, which appear to emphasize the importance and difficulty of this issue. Many recent writers from a wide variety of backgrounds and disci- plines have been developing the theme of the search for meaning (4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 33) . The purpose of this paper is not so much to add to the psychological and philosophical discourse on life-meanings but rather to describe an instrument which purports to survey some of the major

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areas of meaning for individual lives. I have used the "Life-meanings Survey" as a semi-structured depth inter-

view to assess the outcomes of various humanistically oriented educational projects with high school students, medical personnel, and school administrators. These programs are generally considered to be examples of or closely related to confluent education. Confluent education (3, 6, 13, 16, 35) refers to a parti- cular type of person-centered, teaching-learning process which is deliberately de- signed to facilitate harmonious involvement of affective and cognitive com- ponents to stimulate wholeness in the person and to develop a humane society.

Confluent education was developed from many sources in the human po- tential movement, such as basic encounter, creativity, and personal growth work- shops but was at first primarily based on applications of Perls' Gestalt therapy (22) . Lately confluent education has also been strongly influenced by Assa-

468 S. B. SHAPIRO

gioli's psychosynthesis ( 2 ) , Raths, Harmin, and Simon's values clarification methods (24, 32), and the humanistic developmental education approaches of Alschulerl and WeinsteinZ at the University of Massachusetts, and Fantini (34) .

One of the persistent problems in any form of education is evaluation, and this has been particularly true in humanistic education because of the complex, hard-to-measure array of methods, concepts, and people. Confluent education, in particular, has been hard to define precisely, let alone measure or evaluate ( 30 ) . The Life-meanings Survey

The meanings survey-interview was developed to assess participants' re- sponses at a deeper, more personal level than the usual paper-and-pencil per- sonality, attitude, or achievement measures. It is aimed at the "so what?" ques- tion of the outcomes of confluent or humanistic projects. After all the workshops, exercises, encounters, applications, etc. of these ambitious and worthy projects what relatively enduring effects remain which really make a difference in life? The Life-meanings Survey is intended to go beyond the usual piecemeal assessment of changes in self-concept or relationship with others and extends itself into the major philosophical-psychological domains of what is substantially worth doing, believing in and living for and what is a coherent, useful philosophy of living.

I have found it helpful to focus on four basic categories of meanings which serve as a basis for the depth interview which usually lasts from 45 min. to 90 min. depending on the interviewee and conditions of the interview: intentions, significance, symbols, and sense. I also include a fifth category which involves the influence on life-meanings of the intervention or project being studied cur- rently. I have also used the Meanings Survey with senior citizens, middle-aged participants in Life-planning Workshops and others, not specifically in the con- text of a particular intervention but simply to survey the field of life-meanings of these individuals and to get some feel for the experiences which shaped their lives.

The meanings interview is "scored" by classifying responses to three kinds of questions. The first are content questions like "What are your goals, aims or purposes in life?," "What are the things in life that really matter or are worthwhile to you?" and "What symbols are especially important to you?" Responses to these kinds of questions, recorded either by tape recordings or full but not verbatim notes, are analyzed by content areas and quantified in simple frequency counts. For example, in the above question on life goals a respondent may include several categories, e.g., maintaining good relationships with other people, professional-occupational goals of becoming a "good" doctor, and having

'A. Alschuler. Self-knowledge education project. (Unpublished manuscript, School of Education, Univer. of Massachusetts, 1975) 'G. Weinstein. Self-knowledge education project. (Unpublished manuscript, School of Education, Univer. of Massachusetts, 1975)

DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE-MEANINGS TEST 469

a good family life. Spontaneous answers and those given without prompting or further probing by the interviewer are counted as primary responses and are each given a weight of one in the frequency count. Responses given as after- thoughts or when the interviewer says "Are there any other responses besides those you have already given?" are considered secondary responses and are given a weight of one-half in the frequency tabulations.

Questions such as "To what extent are you making progress in fulfilling these life goals, aims or purposes?," "Do you have any trouble in separating out and acting on what really matters?" and "Can you make sense of yourself?" are considered questions of evaluation (degree of progress or degree of ability to formulate meanings). These questions are "scored" by placing these responses on five point rating scales like "Very well, excellent progress-Good progress- Fair progress, some progress-Not much progress, very little-None at all."

The thud kind of question is the process question. Examples of this are: "How do you decide what really counts in your life?," "What is your method of trying to make sense?" and "How do you feel now?" (at the end of the inter- view). Responses to this kind of question are classified according to whether they emphasize self-reference (feelings, intuition, body feelings, etc.), inter- personal processes (talking with others, observation of others, etc.), thinking (analysis, reason, logic), spiritual processes (prayer, religion, appeal to "higher self," e x . ) , or combined patterns (integration of feelings and chinking, etc.).

Several "mini-studies" on the reliability of scoring have been made with the author and two psychologically sophisticated raters who were trained for 2 hr. in scoring. These studies have shown an overlap of approximately 80% in the combined scoring of the newly trained raters and the author using samples of portions of tape-recorded interviews conducted by the author.

As one way of validating it, the interview included Question V-5, "Are these questions O.K.?-clear enough to answer and relevant to you?" The results from the thtee studies discussed below indicate that of a total of 68 responses, 40 or 59% answered "yes," 26 or 38% answered "yes, with some qualifications," and only 2 people or 3% answered "no." These responses appear to indicate that the questions in the interview are valid in the sense that they are clear and meaningful to the respondents.

In addition to the above, Nils M. Grendstadt reported in an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation on the effects of confluent education on teacher training for public schools in Norway ( 11 ) that a group of five trained teachers, adminis- trators and social workers carefully inspected the items and several were actually interviewed by him. All five reported that the questions were clear and covered areas that were relevant, important and of deep concern to them. Grendstadt reported that "this was evidenced by their not only saying so, but also by their whole way of reacting to the questions. Two of them were deeply moved and close to tears." The above suggests that the instrument is a fairly good repre- sentative of the "universe of issues': which it is supposed to cover.

470 S. B. SHAPIRO

Categories of Meaning

Intentions.-The first category of meanings is intentions. Intentions are the aims, missions, or goals which give direction and positive thrust to a person's life. Intentions require self-knowledge as well as knowledge of the world and sets of skills which enable the person to reach his goals. While a number of young people currently object to a highly goal-oriented, future-dominated life style and therefore tend to reject the strictly goal-oriented interpretation of intentionality, whatever life style they choose to affirm and act on remains an act of will or intention in my view. This includes living in the "here and now," being more role-oriented than goal-oriented, etc.

Some questions in the Meanings Survey concern the aims, goals, missions, or purposes of the individual's life and the ways and degree to which he is fulfilling these life goals. Intentions can be grouped into the following areas: relationships with others, developing self and improving quality of life, occu- pational, avocational, spiritual or transpersonal, material wants, education or learning, marriage and family, and ecology, improving the environment.

Significance.-Significance has to do wich the question of what is worth- while, whac is of central importance to the individual. It refers to the substance, weight, moment of experience and what really matters or makes a difference in life. This area closely resembles what other writers call central values (26, 32) or basic concerns (34). Significant being (12, pp. 55-56) involves a life in which the things that a person perceives, reflects on, remembers, anticipates and acts on seem worrh his while. A significant life is a meaningful one in that it is based on the consistent ability to believe in the truth, importance, use- fulness, or interest value of the things in which the individual is engaged or can imagine doing.

The Meanings Survey covers this area with questions about what really matters in life, difficulties in separating and acting on what really matters from whac really does not matter and the processes by which the person knows or decides and acts on whac really counts in his life. Again, the responses can be quantified as primary or secondary in a simple frequency count and can be grouped into the following areas of significance: relationships wich others, love, friendship, intimacy, acceptance; developing self and improving quality of life; work, occupation; hobbies, leisure, avocation; spiritual, transpersonal, religion; material wants, money, survival; education, learning, knowledge, school; mar- riage, family; improving environment, ecology, nature; social movements, peace, women's liberation; philosophy, finding truth, values; character traits like wis- dom, responsibility, independence, awareness, sensitivity, courage, freedom; sexual satisfaction; beauty, artistic, natural; happiness, joy, an exciting, energetic life; security; making a contribution to society, helping others; and rendering no serious harm to others.

Synzbo1s.-In the Life-meanings Survey rituals, ceremonies (shared sym-

DEVELOPMENT OF LIFLMEANINGS TEST 47 1

bolic action patterns), and signs (direct indications or portents) are included as well as symbols per se (more abstract in the sense that they represent but may not have the form or appearance of that which they stand for). Both formal symbols as in mathematics, language and logic, and informal, nondiscursive (23) symbols such as those in the arts and those symbols expressing feelings, beliefs, values, commitments, and insights are included. The intention in the Life-mean- ings Survey is to help the respondent identify and describe those symbols which are especially important to him. Importance is defined here as the attributed power of the symbol to "move," energize, evoke, arouse or influence the inter- viewee.

Symbols are included in the Life-meanings Survey to cover the less verbal, sometimes preconscious, more deeply emotional aspects of meaning which the other categories may not cover. Symbols are most often used to epitomize and convey meanings and as such may be originally secondary to the important ex- periences which they come to represent. However, symbols in their close as- sociation with intentions, significance and sense, in themselves, often become so powerful that for all intents and purposes they may achieve "functional autono- my" (1) and be considered primary in meaning-making. Thus, symbols are crucial to meanings, not only because they are the vehicles (they carry meanings) but because they are useful to the person in that they help him to communicate with himself and others and in that they often do nourish him and help him to adapt creatively to the external world.

There are a wide variety of symbols reported by various individuals and groups in the Life-meanings Survey. I have found so far approximately 130 identifiably distinct symbols in my sample of approximately 150 interviews. Therefore, the following list of categories is merely suggestive. (Symbols can also be grouped as primary and secondary responses as in the other categories of meanings. )

a. Nature, including natural forces, wind, gardening, flowers, plants, stars, life under the ocean, the ocean, birds, trees, animals.

b. Esthetic, including jewelry, music, color, drama, sounds, paintings, sculpturing, photo- graphs, poetry.

c. Heritage symbols including religious items like the Star of David, the Cross, the Menorah, the Fish symbol, and national heritage symbols like various flags, national anthems.

d. Personal, eople-symbols such as hugging, mother and father together, the old family homestea$ family rituals, certain particular people, a smiling face.

e. Intellectual symbols like mathematical equations, great writers, books, libraries, the brain, schools, college campuses, grades in school.

f. Occupational symbols such as nursing pins, caduceus, carpenter tools, law books. g. Material symbols, possessions, houses, money, expensive clothing, cars, gifts. h. Negative symbols such as the swastika, certain neighborhoods in the city, factories,

smog, the rising sun, violent mobs, war, racial prejudice, Watergate. i. Political symbols like Congress, the Capitol, the White House, smoke-filled rooms,

political campaign signs.

472 S. B. SHAPIRO

Sense.-Sense refers to finding order, patterns, coherence in existence. I t includes explication and und~rstanding of self, world, and self-in-the-world. I t is meant to cover both cognitive-analytical and intuitive-affective understand- ings. The question, "What is your philosophy of life?," fits well though not exclusively in the sense category of meaning-making. It is also related to sig- nificance. Responses to this question in the interview are often difficult for the interviewee to formulate spontaneously but with some encouragement most of them are at least able to state some of their basic rules, guidelines or strategies of living. The answers usually come out in the form of aphorisms or advice to self and othcrs and often include statements of what is true and what is desir- able-"the good life." While the philosophy question can and often does elicit coherent patterns or over-all approaches to living which the other questions do not, the entire depth interview, in a very real sense, usually constitutes the inter- viewee's philosophy of living. The advantage of this question and the whole sense category of meanings is that it often helps the respondent to integrate thoughts and feelings previously stimulated by the interview.

Life-meanings Survey questions in the area of sense also include reporting of how the person makes sense, i.e., the methods or processes by which he finds order, pattern and integration in the various areas and levels. of experience. AS with the other three major categories of meaning, questions on making sense are tabulated in terms of the degrees to which people can make sense of self, world. The item on philosophy of life is listed in descriptive terms, such as a typical distribution of values, in life-philosophy: good, warm, nourishing re- lationships with people; self-development, self-actualization; work, achievement; risks and change; higher self, religion, spirituality, transpersonal; conventional norms (be good, productive, honest, reliable); happiness, joy, energy, excite- ment; and various principles such as responsibility, justice, freedom, truth, play, beauty, love, human potential.

Relationship to the current project.-This category ties meanings to a specific context. I t involves an evaluation of the previous questions as well as an attempt to determine the person's familiarity with the questions and the con- ditions under which he has encountered these or similar questions previously. The main purpose of the questions here, however, is an attempt to determine the amount and kinds of influence the particular project has had on the life-meanings processes of the participants.

The interview, therefore, probes the familiarity, clarity, and relevance of the questions and both the general and specific effects of the current project on the respondent's answers in the four previously covered areas of meanings. The final two questions in the Life-meanings Survey offer the interviewee an oppor- tunity for critique of the interview, suggestions for improvement and expression of the current state of his feelings at the end of the interview.

I will now present the actual questions in the Life-meanings Survey and

DEVELOPMENT OF LIFEMEANINGS TEST 473

will follow this with some findings from a study on the effects of confluent education in high school, from a study on the first-year effects of a humanistic medical project on life meanings and from a study on confluent education with school administrators. It is to be noted that in conducting the depth interview 1 have tried to stay very close to the actual wordings of the questions which follow.

Meanings lnte~view Questions

Area I, Intentions 1. Do you know my purposes in conducting this interview? (If not, the interviewer

explains his purposes as a study of how people "put their lives together" and how the current project may or may not affect their lives.)

2. Do you set goals, have aims or purposes in your life? 3. What are these goals, aims or purposes? 4. To what extent and in what ways are you making progress in fulfilling these goals.

aims or purposes?

Area 11, Significance 1. Are there things, events, people or experiences in your life that really matter or are

worthwhile to you? 2. What are these things? 3. Do you have any trouble in separating out and acting on what really matters? 4. How do you decide what really counts in your life?

Area 111, Symbols 1. (After the interviewer explains his definition of symbols as things, people, events,

ideas or forms that stand for other things or ideas, etc., and gives four or five examples like a Christmas tree, a Cross, a flag, nature, music, art, the peace sign, etc.), the question is asked, "What symbols are especially important to you?"

Area IV, Sense

1. Can you make sense of yourself? (If the interviewee doesn't seem fully to comprehend the question, the example of a jig-saw puzzle is used. "Before the puzzle is put together, the over-all patterns ate very hard to see, but after it is assembled, the puzzle usually can be seen as a whole." The question is then rephrased as, "Can you put yourself together or see the over-all picture or patterns in yourself?")

2. Can you make sense of the world? 3. Can you make sense of yourself-in-the-world? 4. What is your philosophy of life? (Your guidelines, over-all strategies or principles

of living) 5. What is your method of trying to make sense?

Area V, Relationship to Current Project 1. Have you heard these questions or ones like them before? 2. If so, when and where did they come up? In che project? Outside the project? 3. Considering the present project as a total exper ienceas a whole-what effect did it

have on your answers to these life-meanings questions? 4. What were some of the outstanding specific influences on life-meanings of the various

activities of the project? 5. Are these questions OK? Are they clear enough to answer and are they relevant to you? 6. Do you have any suggestions for improving the interview? 7. How do you feel now? (Asked at end of interview)

474 S. B. SHAPIRO

RESEARCH RESULTS High School Study

The above interview was conducted with 40 high school students in a middle-class suburban school in which studencs can choose nearly all of their courses. This school was initially chosen because of its relatively large number of teachers (eight) with a definite confluent orientation, making it easy to draw sufficiently large and distributed samples of both confluent and noncon- fluent students. These 40 studencs (almost all white) were volunteers who made themselves available for the interview after the writer gave a brief ex- planation of the purpose of the research as a srudy of the effect of high school on the lives of the students.

Students were selected randomly from the pool of volunteers from classes representing 17 teachers and the interviewer had no prior knowledge of whether the students were from the classes of confluent or nonconfluent teachers. At the end of each interview, each volunteer was placed in one of the two groups depending on whether he or she had been exposed to at least two full semesters of teachers and courses designated as "confluent" by Robin Montz, the coordi- nator of the three-year Ford Foundation Program, Development and Research in Confluent Education, Responsibility and Achievement Project (20). Montz in- cluded as "confluent" those teachers who had been trained in the Ford Foun- dation program.

Studies of biographical and identifying data of the two groups of students showed no statistically significant differences on such variables as sex, age, class in school, grade point average, siblings, days absent, visits to the counselors' office, and mean scores in the reading and arithmetic subscales of the California Tests of Basic Skills. The only two variables which showed tendencies toward significance were days absent and visits to the counselor. On both of these the confluent group was higher, suggesting perhaps more difficulty in adjusting to high school for that group.

Table 1 indicates the most important finding, that the confluent group reported being far more directly influenced by the over-all high school experi- ence in terms of life meanings than the nonconfluent group.

These statistically significant results ( p = .025) suggest that if a student at this particular school selects and is exposed to at least two full semesters of confluently oriented teachers and courses, he is approximately twice (13:6) as likely to attribute highly significant effects of high school on life meanings as measured by the Life-meanings Survey as a similar student who has chosen and been exposed to less than two full semesters of confluent education. The con- fluent students actually had a mean of 3.2 semesters of confluent education whereas the nonconfluent group had only .9 semesters of confluent education.

In addition to this general finding of increased effects of a confluent high school experience on life meanings, the confluent students appeared to be much

DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE-MEANINGS TEST

TABLE 1 INFLUENCE OF HIGH SCHOOL ON LIFE MEANINGS

Response Confluent Nonconfluent Combined Group Group Groups

( n = 20) (n = 20) ( n = 40)

Much Influence 13 6 19 Some Influence 3 1 4 . Little Or No Influence 4 13 17 Totals 20 20 40

more self-improvement oriented, much more verbally responsive3 (although no more able in verbal ability as measured by tests), and more familiar with the kinds of questions in the interview than the nonconfluent group. Further, the confluent group tended to be more inruitive, more people-oriented, more oriented toward the "here and now" and toward feelings than the nonconfluent group.

Confluent students, however, have their problems. They appear to make less sense of themselves even though they seem to be far more self-awareness oriented. They apparently have more trouble in deciding and acting on what is really important to them, visit school counselors more, and are absent from school more often than nonconfluent students. They are also more critical of teachers and courses and tend to regard the meanings interview somewhat less favorably than the nonconfluent students in this sample.

Summarizing, the confluent students appeared to reflect a more psychologi- cal, philosophical, intraceptive approach to life and with this appear more ver- bally responsive and significantly more influenced by high school on life-mean- ings issues than the nonconfluent students.

Whether the above features were related to the selection of or exposure to (or both) confluent teachers and confluent courses cannot be determined by present data. A recent sample of confluent students and nonconfluent students from the same high school tested on the Myers-Rriggs Type Indicator (F, the tendency to make judgments based on feelrngs rather than thinking) did not show statistically significant differences on any of the traits, suggesting that selection factors may be less important than exposure to confluent educatiom4 Perhaps confluent students may be somewhat different at the time they choose these teachers and courses and confluent education tends to reinforce these differ- ences from nonconfluent students. What is apparent is that when differences, both in selection and exposure do occur, differences also appear reflected in the Life-meanings Interview.

Of course, it is difficult to determine by this self-report, verbal instrument that the confluent students were not simply verbalizing what they had heard

They gave many more "storable" secondary responses than the nonconfluent group but the actual lengths of the interviews were approximately the same. 'Communication to the author from Stephen Marcus, Department of Education, Universiry of California, Santa Barbara, October, 1975.

about confluent education from their confluently trained teachers. It would probably take behavioral observations on these students before and after their exposure to confluent methods and follow-up interviews and other instruments to demonstrate that the observed effects were more than mere verbalizations. However, other studies of the effects of confluent education (5, 18, 31) tend to indicate that these are more than superficial verbal changes taking place. Apparently, confluent education can increase objectively observed informality, and orientation to the present in teachers, and can improve general self-concept and academic self-concept ( in mathematics) in students.

Hl~manzstic Medical Project Fourteen participants in a 4-yr. humanistic medical project in the San

Francisco Bay Area (19, 25) were interviewed approximately 1 yr. after the project began. As in the high school study, the Life-meanings Survey was used retrospectively in an effort to determine some of the outcomes of this project. Originally there were nine physicians in various branches of medicine (pedi- atrics, internal medicine, EENT, public health, psychosomatic medicine, family medicine, head of a large hospital emergency room), three nurses or medical assistants, and two spouses, both of whom were trained in counseling or edu- cational psychology. Due to recording problems, data for two of the participants (one doctor and one spouse) were not included in the quantitative results.

The Humanistic Medical Project consisted of approximately one weekend workshop per month at Esalen Institute and one mid-week follow-up conference after each of these weekends. The weekend workshops included a wide variety of humanistic approaches, with the objectives of personal growth, changes in concepts and techniques of medical practice and humanistic, innovative leader- ship in the medical profession. There were separate workshops on group dy- namics, encounter, Gestalt awareness training, massage, psychosynthesis, bio- feedback, and "change-agentry." In addition to these activities, each participant was required to keep an extensive personal journal on his/her experiences and to develop a proposal for a specific project which applied the experience to theory or practice of medicine. Table 2 compares the medical project partici- pants with the confluent and nonconfluent high school students in terms of over-all effects of the experiences on life meanings as determined by the inter- views. The same questions were used in both the high school and medical project studies.

Table 2 suggests dramatic differences between the over-all impact of the medical project and the effects of confluent education on the high school stu- dents. Over 90% of the participants in the medical project (substantiated by subsequent interviews with the two participants not reported here) were strongly affected in their life-meanings processes whereas 65% of the confluent education students and only 30% of the nonconfluent students were so affected.

DEVELOPMENT OF LIFLMEANINGS TEST 477

TABLE 2 COMPARATIVE EFFECTS OF A HUMANISTIC MEDICAL PROJECT AND

CONFLUENT EDUCATION IN A HIGH SCHOOL

Degree of Effect Medical Confluent H.S. Nonconfluent Project Students H.S. Students

n % n % n %

Much 11 92 13 65 6 30 Some 1 8 3 15 1 5 Little Or None 0 0 4 - 20 13 65 Totals 12 100. 20 100 20 100

The kind of differential effects shown on Table 2 can be construed as evidence of the influence of the humanistic medical project. As mentioned above, the differences between the confluent and nonconfluent students were statistically significant ( p = .025). Even though the small numbers in the medical project make calculations impractical, the "eyeball" impressions of sig- nificance remain very strong. Although these differential effects may, in large part, be due to preselection, in the case of the medical project, retrospective re- ports of important changes suggest both "selection" and "treatment" effects are related to changes over time.

Finally, it is important to note that the subjects in these two studies varied widely in age and the treatments were quite different in terms of their duration and context. The medical people had, at the time of the interviews, about 200 hours of exposure to confluent (humanistic) methods, whereas the confluent high school group had approximately 150 hr. and the nonconfluent group ap- proximately 50 hr. This suggests that the duration of exposure to humanistic methods may, along with preselection, be very important.

Confluent Education with School Administrators

The goals of the 1-yr. Ford Foundation project, Educational Administrators' Project in Confluent Education, were as follows: the further development and perfection of a professional training model in confluent education (following Development and Research in Confluent Education, and other programs in con- fluent education); enabling participants to lead fuller, more satisfying personal and professional lives; stimulating more humanistic practices and orientations by the professionals participating in the program; and stimulating innovative structures, policies, and practices for humanizing a profession.

Eighteen school administrators from Northern California (including spouses) were recruited and selected from a large "pool" of interested adminis- trators in the area. This "pool" of 40 people was derived from correspondents with various confluent and humanistic sources, such as the Ford Foundation's Development and Research in Confluent Education and the Association of Humanistic Psychology.

The training model was very similar to that of the humanistic medical

project except that it was compressed into 1 yr. instead of 4. Weekend work- shops at Esalen Institute in a wide variety of similar approaches such as group dynamics training, basic encounter, massage, Gestalt awareness-training, biofeed- back, psychosynthesis, and planned change were also followed by mid-week semi- nars designed to integrate and apply the weekend learning. Personal journals and written "projects" to apply the experience to the practices and policies of school administration were also included, much as in the medical project. Life- meanings interviews were conducted before and after the program using the identical questions as in the high school and medical studies.

The outstanding changes by area suggested by the interviews were several. There was a definite decrease in emphasis on occupational goal orientation, suggesting a move inward, away from their previously strong external orientation to living. In spite of this inward movement, the order of goal emphasis after the project remained: professional-occupational. self-development, relationship with others and last, community service.

There was very little change in what was regarded as really important in life, but there was a very large gain ( 1 to 1 3 ) in the primary use of self and feelings as a way of determining what really matters in life. This, again, sug- gests a shift from a n exrernal orientation toward a much stronger inward, affec- tively oriented valuing process and supports the findings in Area I, Intentions.

There was a large gain in the use of symbols of nature (1 to 9 responses) and some gain in the use of "people symbols" ( 1 1 to 16% responses). Most other kinds of symbols (esthetic, intellectual, material) lost slightly in emphasis. I t appears from these results that the school administrators were moving much as the other two "confluent" groups.

In the area of sense, the results were complex and somewhat contradictory to the trends in the other areas. Despite the very substantial increase in the use of self and feelings to determine what really matters in life, there was a slight decrease in ability to make sense of self and no change in making sense of self-in-the-world. O n the question of how one makes sense, the changes were in the opposite direction from changes in the first three areas. There were slight decreases in the use of self and feelings and slight increases in the use of thinking and combined patterns as ways of making sense. However, there was evidence of clearer philosophical orientation after the project. Thus, i t is difficult to interpret these data.

O n the post-interview the administrators reported increased familiarity with the issues of life-meanings aside from the previous interview and a strong in- crease in the frequency ( 3 to 1 5 responses) with which participants discussed these issues with other people outside the project. This suggests stimulation of philosophical processes which may have been generated by the program but which were not integrated into it.

In terms of over-all impact, the program for administrators had a moderate

DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE-MEANINGS TEST 479

effect ( 1 1 out of 18 reported a moderate degree of program influence on life meanings). The major effects seem to be psychological, an increased awareness of feelings and comfort with self and more empathy with others, especially those with divergent viewpoints. I t was quite difficult for most of the participants to connect even strong psychological effects with important changes in philosophi- cal or meanings orientation. Thus, I conclude there was moderate impact on self-awareness and relationships with others and some significant philosophical stimulation, but the latter was not well integrated and therefore my impression is that the entire project had a mixed effect on life meanings.

Since the purpose of this paper was primarily to report and demonstrate the usefulness of the Life-manings Survey rather than to make careful statistical comparisons in these three studies, firm conclusions about the effects of humanis- tic or confluent education will have to await much more extensive research. However, using this survey can produce a rough quantitative and qualitative picture of the effects of various interventions on the life-meanings processes. For example, the order of self-reported life-meanings impact from the various humaniscic/confluent interventions among the four groups indicated the follow- ing, by corrected weighted mtings,%n the question of over-all effect of the given project: the medical group was most affected (corrected weighted rating = 70), the confluent high school group was second (rating = 5 1 ) , the school administrators were third (rating = 44), and the nonconfluent high school group was least affected (rating = 34) .

As noted previously, most of the participants apparently found these inter- views relevant. Only 37% of them suggested any changes whatsoever in format or procedures. Furthermore, judging by the largely positive affect reported at the end of the interviews, it appears that the Life-meanings Survey can be con- ducted with very solid rapport with the interviewees. At least part of this seems related to the semi-structured, open-ended nature of the interview and probably to whatever skills and warmth the interviewer may possess.

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'Calculated by weighting "very strong" effects as 4, "strong" effects as 3, "some effect" as .2, and "little or no effect" as 1 and correcting all totals to a base of n = 20.

480 S. B. SHAPIRO

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Accepted June 14, 1976.