The ways of coping: does it lead to post traumatic growth?

Abstract

For many years psychologists have traditionally been focused on investigating the negative influence of stress rather than being focused on “positive changes experienced as a result of the struggle with traumaâ€. The presented paper uses Tedeschi and Calhoun (1996) model of posttraumatic growth and deals with establishing whether personality variables and the ways of coping can predict how effectively individuals cope with trauma, specifically, whether those variables lead to posttraumatic growth. 118 participants (M(age)=39.56; SD=15.04) who experienced at least one traumatic event in life (e.i. death of close person, being forced to flee from their homes, financial difficulties due to losing a job and etc.) were administered with the instruments of assessing big five personality traits and emotion related self-perceptions, along with the Coping Scale (Carver, sheier & Weintraub 1989) and The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996). The results showed that personality traits predict the ways of coping and accordingly, the strategies used for coping with the stressful event lead to posttraumatic growth; the relationship between personality traits and posttraumatic growth is mediated by the ways of coping. The obtained empirical data sheds light on the mechanisms how the ways of coping can lead to the posttraumatic growth.