Dysfunctional Attitudes and Long-Term Posttraumatic Growth in Victims of Terrorist Attacks

Abstract

Background: The theoretical models of posttraumatic growth (PTG) assume that a change in core beliefs or attitudes about the world and oneself is at the root of PTG. However, there are few studies on the relationship between these attitudes and PTG and their results are contradictory. The contradictions could be clarified using an instrument that assesses attitudes more specifically related to the traumatic event (traumatic dysfunctional attitudes) and analyzing whether said relationship is linear or an inverted U. Methods: A sample of 210 adults directly exposed to terrorist attacks in Spain completed diagnostic measures of emotional disorders and measures of PTSD and depression symptomatology, optimism, traumatic and depressive dysfunctional attitudes, and PTG a mean of 29.6 years after the attacks (range: 2-47 years). Results: Multiple regression analyses revealed that some long-term PTG dimensions were significantly associated in a linear or inverted-U fashion with traumatic dysfunctional attitudes, such that the most extreme levels of spiritual change were associated with the highest total levels of traumatic dysfunctional attitudes while the highest levels of appreciation of life were associated with moderate levels of total traumatic dysfunctional attitudes and, especially, attitudes of perpetual suffering. However, long-term PTG was not associated with depressive dysfunctional attitudes. Conclusion: The findings underscore the importance of core attitudes for PTG and offer support for the hypothesis that, over time, the positive basic attitudes of many people who have experienced a traumatic event are reconstructed, but incorporating negative or dysfunctional attitudes, which means that a certain amount of traumatic dysfunctional attitudes may be a necessary condition for long-term PTG.

Posttraumatic Growth, Metacognitive Beliefs, Self-Absorption and Dysfunctional Trauma-Related Attitudes in a Sample of the Spanish General Populations

“…That is, people who had suffered a traumatic event and who afterwards felt closer to others or believed they could rely on others in a crisis, or those who felt stronger and more self-confident, were also likely to believe that the emotional distress caused by the traumatic experience would be moderately chronic and that the psychological damage they had suffered would be moderately irreversible. This finding echoes the results of a study by Liébana et al (2022), which found that the likelihood of victims of terrorist attacks to express new appreciation for life had an inverted U-shaped relationship with the overall level of dysfunctional trauma-related attitudes and, especially, with the level of dysfunctional attitudes expecting distress to be chronic. Therefore, both the results of the present study and those of Liébana et al (2022) lend support to the arguments of Janoff-Bulman ( 2004), who maintained that, over time, the basic positive attitudes and beliefs of many of those who have had traumatic experiences are rebuilt, but that at the same time these people also adopt negative or dysfunctional beliefs.…”

“…These more positive constructs are all either directly or indirectly involved in Tedeschi and Calhoun's (1995;Tedeschi et al, 2018) model of PTG. In fact, instruments assessing these positive constructs tend to include inverse items that reflect their negative or dysfunctional variants, and vice-versa (Liébana et al, 2022). This argument supports this study's focus on the negative or dysfunctional variants of metacognitive beliefs, self-focused attention and trauma-related attitudes, but the choice of this focus also arose from the desire to investigate whether the association between these variables and PTG might be curvilinear rather than linear.…”

“…On the other hand, several studies have found significant positive correlations between positive trauma-related attitudes and higher scores of PTG, or higher scores for certain dimensions of the construct (Gökler Danışman et al, 2018;Valdez y Lilly, 2015). Other studies, however, have found significant negative correlations in this regard (Lahav et al, 2016) or even significant positive correlations between PTG and a greater presence of negative or dysfunctional trauma-related attitudes (Liébana et al, 2022). There are also studies that have found a mix of positive and negative significant correlations between these variables (Carboon et al, 2005), and still others that have found no significant correlations at all (Su & Chen, 2015), or have found inverted U-shaped relationships (a significant association between PTG and a moderate level of negative or dysfunctional trauma-related attitudes) (Liébana et al, 2022).…”

“…Therefore, it would stand to reason that these positive beliefs and attitudes toward the world and oneself, which are the foundation of these cognitive schemas, would also be related to PTG. This is especially likely to be the case for beliefs or attitudes related to the traumatic event itself (trauma-related attitudes or traumatic attitudes) (Liébana et al, 2022).…”

“…This argument supports this study's focus on the negative or dysfunctional variants of metacognitive beliefs, self-focused attention and trauma-related attitudes, but the choice of this focus also arose from the desire to investigate whether the association between these variables and PTG might be curvilinear rather than linear. This possibility has yet to be examined through empirical study in any of the previous research on the relationships between PTG and metacognitive beliefs, self-focused attention and basic beliefs or attitudes (with the exception of the study by Liébana et al, 2022). However, studies of posttraumatic stress symptoms have sometimes looked at possible curvilinear relationships with PTG.…”