Post‐traumatic growth as positive personality change: Challenges, opportunities, and recommendations

Abstract

ObjectivePost‐traumatic growth typically refers to enduring positive psychological change experienced as a result of adversity, trauma, or highly challenging life circumstances. Critics have challenged insights from much of the prior research on this topic, pinpointing its significant methodological limitations. In response to these critiques, we propose that post‐traumatic growth can be more accurately captured in terms of personality change—an approach that affords a more rigorous examination of the phenomenon.MethodWe outline a set of conceptual and methodological questions and considerations for future work on the topic of post‐traumatic growth.ResultsWe provide a series of recommendations for researchers from across the disciplines of clinical/counseling, developmental, health, personality, and social psychology and beyond, who are interested in improving the quality of research examining resilience and growth in the context of adversity.ConclusionWe are hopeful that these recommendations will pave the way for a more accurate understanding of the ubiquity, durability, and causal processes underlying post‐traumatic growth.

None the wiser: Year-long longitudinal study on effects of adversity on wisdom

“…Engels et al, 2019;cf. Infurna & Luthar, 2016;Jayawickreme et al, 2021;Luhmann & Eid, 2009). Focusing on wisdom, we observed no evidence for posttraumatic growth for any type of adversity participants reported.…”

Post-Traumatic Growth and Stress-Related Responses During the COVID-19 Pandemic in a National Representative Sample: The Role of Positive Core Beliefs About the World and Others

“…Given the rather immediate assessment conducted in the present study (i.e., one month after the onset of the pandemic in the country), it is unlikely that participants, even those who felt more threatened or exposed to the virus, have had enough time for further cognitive elaboration of the effects of the pandemic in their lives (Park 2010). Thus, our data are not adequate to test concepts of PTG that are associated to long-term outcomes or even personality changes (Jayawickreme and Blackie 2014; Jayawickreme et al 2020). In this study we have evaluated perceived growth when the stressful situation (i.e., the Covid-19 pandemic) is still present, so we must necessarily consider that, at this point, we are basically measuring a coping strategy that might facilitate, in the future, the development of more adaptive responses to adversity, as proposed by longitudinal studies (Bussell and Naus 2010;Stephenson et al 2017).…”

Pandemic and Typhoon: Positive Impacts of a Double Disaster on Mental Health of Female Students in the Philippines

“…The problem with this term is that they are personal and cannot be generalized or systematically disseminated [ 34 ] Without a system for knowledge transfer, individual “lessons learned” would be lost when the person no longer functions in a disaster management position; hence, knowledge should be imparted to future generations, as is customary for every other scientific specialty [ 35 ]. Besides learning, post-traumatic growth (PTG) could be used, as this term refers to enduring a positive psychological change experienced as a result of adversity, trauma, or highly challenging life circumstances [ 36 ]. Following trauma or recovering from an acute stress reaction, the PTG can be referred to as the development of new knowledge, abilities, relationships, or hope and confidence [ 37 ], which were also narrated by the participants of the study.…”