DOI: 10.26466/opusjsr.2013784 ISSN: 2791-9781

The experiential meaning of emotions in young people’s reflective writing: The contexts of family and self

Mahmut Erdil
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This study examined how university students related emotion labels to family relationships, social environments, and lived experiences in the elective course “Family Psychology and Education.” A classroom-based qualitative descriptive design was used to examine six writing activities conducted across five calendar weeks between May 20 and June 17, 2026, after ethics approval. Of 33 enrolled students, the 30 women who completed all activities formed the analytic sample; the all-women sample was not selected by gender. The dataset comprised 180 coded written forms. Meaningful text segments were coded inductively and semantically, developed into themes, and then interpreted through selected concepts of symbolic interactionism. Three themes addressed the distance between emotion labels and experiential meaning; emotions within loss, injustice, belonging, and autonomy; and connections among emotion, self, and relational roles. In final reflections, students described seeing more clearly how emotions took shape in everyday life, family relationships, and social experience. These statements were analyzed as accounts of perceived learning. Because the activities used different prompts, the study identifies contextual patterns of written meaning-making rather than a causal course effect or measured change.

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