Grieving Parents’ Meaning-Making Narration in Relation to Value Orientations: A Cross-Cultural Study

Daiming Xiu*, Andreas Maercker, Clare Killikelly, Yuting Yang, Xiaoming Jia

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    2 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This study investigated the association between prolonged grief (PG) severity and meaning-making narration in a cross-cultural context, and specifically aimed to illustrate the role of value orientation in shaping the grieving process. 30 Chinese and 22 Swiss parents who lost their child were asked to narrate and appraise specific memories to reflect their self-evaluation of traditional and modern values. The self-reported Prolonged Grief Disorder Scale (ref ICD-11) assessed PG severity. Compared with the Swiss sample, the Chinese sample provided more elaborated memories, which was not associated with symptom severity. Both Chinese and Swiss bereaved parents with more severe PG provided more narratives of loss-related memories, particularly in response to modern values. They also provided more appraisals of negative meanings for self-defining memories, particularly in relation to their traditional values. These findings indicate that, despite cultural differences in narration tendency, PG severity in bereaved parents was associated with the maladaptive integration of autobiographical memories across different cultures, in relation to value orientations. A clinical implication is the potential value of facilitating narrations of grieving clients that center on value orientations to mitigate the hardship of the personal loss.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)905-916
    Number of pages12
    JournalTranscultural Psychiatry
    Volume60
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Dec 2023

    Keywords

    • autobiographical memory
    • bereaved parent
    • meaning
    • narration
    • prolonged grief
    • value orientation

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