Growth and the Multiple Dimensions of Well-Being

What is the possible role of adversity in promoting the development of wisdom and well-being? This chapter focuses on examining psychological discussions of post-traumatic growth and discusses whether and how we would expect suffering, adversity, or trauma to push an individual in positive and negative ways, with an emphasis on multiple dimensions of psychological well-being. The chapter interweaves insights from the philosophical literature to arrive at a better understanding of whether and to what degree post-traumatic growth is likely to occur or if growth following adversity is part of the cultural narrative that does not effectively translate to the individual.

Using Methods from Personality Psychology to Study Post-Traumatic Growth

This chapter discusses methodological approaches for examining the causality, accuracy, stability, and mechanisms of short-term adversity-driven change in samples drawn from different populations, each highly likely to be exposed to different forms of challenge and failure. This methodological work builds on Frazier et al.’s (2009) groundbreaking longitudinal study. The authors discuss the advantages of using longitudinal multimethod measurement burst designs and a profile approach utilizing a round-robin design, as well as a qualitative assessment. Each methodology promises to address novel questions concerning the perception, meta-perception, and development of character following challenge and failure. The chapter also examines individual difference factors, such as social support and cumulative life adversity, which may moderate this relationship. Given that participants from different populations likely differ in the amount of cumulative adversity they have experienced, the authors also examine the possibilities and limitations of lifetime adversity in acting as a catalyst for subsequent growth.

Studying Post-Traumatic Growth Across the Adult Life Span

This chapter discusses conceptual and methodological considerations for studying post-traumatic growth across adulthood and into old age. Conceptual considerations that the authors focus on include examining character strengths and virtues longitudinally across multiple age groups and also the stability of these strengths and virtues across the life span. Methodological considerations elaborated are the use of convenience sampling in scale development and the importance of measurement invariance when examining character strengths in the context of post-traumatic growth. The authors provide examples from previous research on post-traumatic growth and discuss methods of measurement that could be utilized to enhance the validity of current measures. The chapter highlights the importance of character strengths and virtues and aims to solidify their role in the scientific community. Additionally, it highlights the need for more rigorous lines of scientific inquiry in this area due to its potential to impact healthy aging outcomes for persons across the adult life span.

Post-Traumatic Growth Interventions

Individuals who live through adverse experiences such as natural disasters, abuse, combat, and chronic illness have the potential to develop post-traumatic stress symptoms, which have been the target of various therapeutic interventions. This chapter provides an overview of what is known about interventions to promote post-traumatic growth, the limitations of existing studies, and an outline for future research on how such interventions can be successfully designed and evaluated. This chapter also highlights the utility of interventions that promote post-traumatic growth following adversity and how this relates to shaping the cultural narrative that surrounds growth following adversity, challenge, or failure.

Openness to Experience and Post-Traumatic Growth

Although many individuals retrospectively report feeling more open and receptive to new ideas and possibilities after experiencing adverse events, research specifically examining growth on this dimension of character (as opposed to more general psychological growth) remains scarce. To stimulate future theoretical and empirical work in this area, this chapter reviews and discusses existing scientific research pertaining to changes in the personality trait of openness to new experience following adversity. Studies using retrospective self-reports have shown that people judge themselves as more open following highly stressful events. Such research also suggests that changes in openness could even help foster more general psychological growth. It is, however, possible that people involuntarily distort their self-perceptions to cope with difficulties, and several other lines of research have produced contradictory findings. Correlational and experimental evidence has shown that stressful experiences can decrease openness. Most longitudinal studies examining changes in personality over time have found no changes in openness following negative events. To help reconcile previous contradictory findings, the authors propose a methodological agenda including using multiple methods to assess openness, complementing correlational with longitudinal methods to examine changes over time, studying everyday manifestations of openness (including how people deal with everyday stressors), and investigating potential moderators and mediators of growth in this trait. Such research will help increase clarity about the circumstances under which people may (or may not) become more open as a result of adversity.

Modeling Growth and Resilience Among Military Personnel

The prospect that people can be resilient to—or even grow from—a stressful experience is an alluring possibility—especially so for soldiers and veterans. Some have proposed that deploying and military experiences provide soldiers with enduring mental resources and toughness that are protective for the rest of their lives. However, definitive evidence for growth and resilience among military personnel has proved elusive. Part of the unknowns about growth and resilience can be attributable to how people think about and model questions related to growth and resilience. In this chapter, the author provides two empirical examples—changes in depressive symptoms among veterans and changes in character strengths among deploying soldiers—to illustrate how different conceptualizations, methods, and analyses can dramatically change the inferences we make about growth and resilience. The demonstrations provide an increased understanding about methodological flexibility in the study of growth and resilience and some expectations about how and why individuals might change in response to adversity.

Using Culturally and Contextually Informed Theorizing in Research on Post-Traumatic Growth

There is popular and scholarly interest in the idea that adverse experiences may promote character/virtue development. Scholarship can address previous methodological and conceptual limitations by studying character development processes in groups that demonstrate high exposure to adversity and high virtues. Though there is substantial within-group diversity, prior research shows that Mexican Americans display high character strengths (including relatedness, spirituality, and prosocial behaviors) and high rates of exposure to adversities. The authors discuss conceptual models that explore the cultural development of character growth from late childhood to early adulthood, with an emphasis on longitudinal changes in relatedness, spirituality, and prosocial behaviors among individuals who are diverse on adversity exposures and individual characteristics that might trigger growth following adversity. To address prior critical methodological and conceptual limitations, the discussion centers on differentiating among whether individuals who have experienced no adversities, traumatic events, and chronic adversities may show differential trajectories of change and the exploration of mechanisms that may support growth processes. The work advances an understanding of character strength development in a rapidly growing and relatively vulnerable US population.

Post-Traumatic Growth in Later Adulthood

This chapter focuses on conceptual notions and methodological approaches for examining whether post-traumatic growth is possible in older adults, with an emphasis on individual and dyadic approaches. A majority of the literature to this point has focused on examining changes in the individual who experienced the traumatic event, but much less is known regarding how a partner or spouse responds to the traumatic event. This chapter discusses how the use of multimethod prospective longitudinal measurement burst designs can provide insights into this growth following a traumatic event. The authors discuss as an example the case when at least one partner is planning to transition into assisted living. An increasing number of individuals reaching old age must make the decision to transition into an assisted living or similar type of home. The use of multimethod prospective longitudinal designs enables the researcher to delineate the extent to which character virtues may change on different time scales in terms of state character virtues assessed in daily life (e.g., how altruistic a person is in a given moment or day) versus trait characteristics (e.g., how altruistic a person is, on average) and elucidate hypothesized transactional mechanisms (e.g., individual differences, dyadic, and contextual factors, such as experiences of daily stressors) that may promote or inhibit changes in character virtues.

Pathways from Adversity to Wisdom

Focusing on one’s adversity can be a source of strength, facilitating meaning-making and growth. However, adversity can also lead to depression, anxiety, and trauma-related stress. The authors propose that the self-perspective one takes while reflecting on adversity—that is, self-distanced (third-person perspective on one’s experiences) versus self-immersed (first-person perspective)—modulates the effects of adversity for subsequent developmental trajectories in character strengths. The authors specifically focus on wisdom-related character strengths—open-mindedness, humility, and empathy—which they have previously associated with greater self-distancing in the lab. They discuss how multimethod prospective studies can allow for effectively testing whether self-distancing prospectively facilitates expression and growth in open-mindedness, humility, and empathy after a wide range of adverse experiences.

Emotions and Positive Personality Change in Syrian-Origin Young Adults Who Have Recently Resettled in the Netherlands

Around the world, the number of people who seek or have refugee status continues to increase. Despite the adverse experiences and challenges that many people who seek or have refugee status encounter, adversity is thought to promote growth in resilience, kindness, and humility. Little is known about how such positive personality development occurs, but one potential pathway is through emotions. Exposure to adversity may trigger a range of emotional experiences such as sorrow, guilt, trepidation, nostalgia, compassion, gratitude, and love. These emotional experiences, in turn, may drive personality change. Karakter is a 13-month longitudinal study examining how emotional experiences in everyday life may contribute to the link between adversity and personality change in Syrian-origin young adults who have recently resettled in the Netherlands. In this project, the authors join a growing literature examining positive development and specifically whether positive personality change follows adversity in individuals who seek or have refugee status. The results should provide much needed information that can help people with refugee backgrounds thrive and also help change the way they are perceived by receiving cultures.