Cognitive Complexity in Response to Traumatic Experiences

Abstract

Two studies examined how personality motives influence the perception of traumatic events in memory and how such perception may be linked to psychological distress. Participants completed implicit and explicit measures of agentic and communal motives. In Study 1, participants living in New York City at the time of the terrorist attacks wrote their thoughts and feelings about the events of September 11th. In Study 2, participants wrote about a personally traumatic experience. In both studies, they also completed questionnaires on psychological symptoms and stress-related growth. The memories were then scored for differentiation and integration. Agentic motives correlated with differentiated perceptions and differentiation was linked to dissociative symptoms in Study 2. Communal motives related to integrated perceptions, and integration related to stress-related growth in both studies. Findings suggest that motives play a significant role in the perception of traumatic and difficult experiences and that these perceptions may be differentially linked to psychological impact.

Character Strengths and Deep Connections Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Spiritual and Secular Pathways to Resistance Among Volunteers

“…An altruist's hope is not for the future of the self only, but for that of others in the world at large, which can be especially meaningful in the context of disasters that create significant community needs. The same pattern was shown after the collective trauma of 9/11, which evoked not the need for intimacy indicating simple relatedness, but on a much deeper level, New Yorkers’ desire to care for others (Woike and Matic ).…”

Predictors of post-traumatic growth in stroke survivors

“…In the research literature, PTG has been investigated using a broad range of traumata such as military combat (Fontana & Rosenheck, 1998), war (Ai et al 2007), rape (Thompson, 2000), terrorist led events (Woike & Matic, 2004), spinal cord injury (McMillen & Cook, 2003) and AIDS/HIV (Seigel et al 2005). Traumata vary widely in terms of event-related factors such as severity, proximity to and exposure to event, extent of loss, duration, predictability and suddenness of onset (Schaefer & Moos, 1998, p.107).…”

Self-Construal as a Mediator Between Identity Structure and Subjective Well-Being

“…The findings of Witkin et al (1954, 1962 as cited in Schenkel 1975) also link high awareness of one’s needs, feelings, and attributes to field independence. Both cognitive differentiation and field independence have been shown to be related to an independent self-construal (see Hannover et al 2006; Kühnen et al 2001; Kühnen and Oyserman 2002; Stapel and Koomen 2001; Woike and Matic 2004). …”