Rosenberg and McCullough (1981) originally proposed three dimensions of the perception of interpersonal mattering: attention, importance, and dependence.
Rosenberg's framework for mattering changed over time as he elaborated components and types of mattering.
Indeed, the literature addressing mattering has been evolving with a distinct focus on interpersonal mattering, but the potentially vital element of societal mattering has received little attention in the professional literature.
At its best, humanism inoculates us against ideology, conferring a kind of immunity to the most seductive strains of pretend mattering. I am suggesting that it can also provide a relatively clear view of the mattering landscape--one that can actually orient us morally.
Notice that the concept of mattering is like a thread that ties together humanisms disparate elements.
It also repositions us culturally: Why languish in the niche market for rational philosophies (where no one is buying anyhow), when we can compete in the bustling mattering market (where demand is robust)?
Again, assessments of students' perceptions of mattering after a series of classroom guidance lessons can take the form of mattering-based pre-surveys and post-surveys that focus on students' perceptions of mattering to their school counselor, teacher, and other students.
Just as in individual and group counseling, counselors can use both verbal and nonverbal methods to create a sense of mattering to others in consultation activities.
Of utmost importance to the empirical validation of mattering as a distinct construct was Elliott et al.'s (2004) selection of five additional constructs from social psychology that they believed could be theoretically related to mattering.
The results of Elliott et al.'s (2004) study revealed that mattering to others was positively related to an individual's self-esteem and perceived social support, negatively related to self-consciousness and both forms of alienation, and positively related to the public performance factor of self-monitoring.
The path coefficients between acculturation and wellness and mattering and wellness for minority participants were all nonsignificant.
Therefore, ethnic identity, acculturation, and mattering did not significantly predict wellness among the nonminority participants.
