Dimensionality Assessment of the Measure of Mundane Meaning

Meaning in life is an important aspect of psychological wellbeing. The Measure of Mundane Meaning (MMM) measures the presence of meaning in life and is unique in its development among participants with experience of trauma. The MMM was hypothesised to comprise of four factors including sense of purpose, high-level action identification, integration of circumstance, and coherence of self-narrative and the aim of the current study is to conduct a dimensionality assessment of the MMM in a general population sample.
The study utilised a novel psychometric technique, Exploratory Graph Analysis, to analyse the 36-item MMM. These 893 participants were a combination of clinical and non-clinical samples.
Redundancy was assessed using Unique variable analysis (UVA) and the stability of the items was assessed. Random intercept EGA (riEGA), which is a modified version of EGA that can account for wording effects was utilised. In this process, twelve items were removed, and the remaining 24 items formed four dimensions. Using confirmatory factor analysis, this model was found to exhibit good fit, and a multidimensional model was favoured. The final sample consisted of four dimensions, which represented the four hypothesised dimensions. The relationship between the MMM and other measures of meaning, depression, and underlying assumptions was evaluated to assess convergent validity along with developing an understanding of the relationship between the MMM and other underlying constructs.
This validation of the MMM provides a measure of meaning in life which corresponds to an underlying theoretical structure of the construct. This can enable more precise measurement of meaning in life, in both research and for clinical purposes.