Abstract
Traumatic events are common in the world. As we all know, traumatic experience will bring psychological pain to individuals. Post-traumatic growth (PTG) is the most common positive outcome after traumatic events. And previous studies have found that many factors have an effect on the developmental process of PTG. An enormous amount of research attention has been devoted to investigating the core belief challenge and PTG, while relatively little attention has been paid to the relationship between the painful degree of traumatic events and PTG, and the painful degree of special different traumatic events may lead to different outcome. the purpose of this study was to get better insights into the associations between the painful degree of different traumatic events and PTG, and to test the possible mediating role of the core belief challenge.
535 college students were assessed by the Scale of Lifetime Incidence of Traumatic Events-Student Form, Core Beliefs Inventory and Post-traumatic Growth Inventory. For the purpose of data analysis in this study, the first 15 items of Lifetime Incidence of Traumatic Events-Student Form were assigned to five domains: traumatic events related to victim or witness of accident, injury, illness, or death (4 items), the traumatic events related to family member hospitalized or died(2 items), the traumatic events related to natural disaster, such as flood, and fire (2 items), the traumatic events related to family conflict, such as parental divorce (2 items), and traumatic events related to maltreatment, such as physical hurt, and sexual harassment (5 items). Pearson product moment correlation coefficient was employed to assess associations of main study variables(i.e., degree of traumatic events pain, the core belief challenge and PTG). structural equation modeling (SEM) were performed to explore the mediation effect of the core belief challenge. The results showed that (1) the painful degree of traumatic events related to family member hospitalized or died had significantly negative correlations with PTG (p <.01) and the core belief challenge (p <.01) ; the painful degree of traumatic events related to maltreatment had significantly positive correlations with PTG (p <.01) and the core belief challenge (p <.01); the painful degree of traumatic events related to victim or witness of accident, injury, illness, or death had significantly positive correlations with the core belief challenge (p <.05); the painful degree of the traumatic events related to natural disaster and family conflict had non-significant correlations with PTG and the core belief challenge; (2) the painful degree of traumatic events related to victim or witness of accident, injury, illness, or death had a significant direct effect on on the core belief challenge ( =.12)and PTG ( =.09); the painful degree of traumatic events related to family member hospitalized or died had a significant direct effect on the core belief challenge ( =-.16)and PTG( =-.17); the core belief challenge had a significant direct effect on PTG( =.64); the painful degree of traumatic events related to maltreatment had a significant direct effect on the core belief challenge ( =.19)and PTG( =.13). These results indicated that the core belief challenge served as a mediator effect between the painful degree of traumatic events and PTG.
The important implication of this study is that it was necessary to involve traumatic event types when promoting individual PTG. Thus, we should consider the specific traumatic events individual may encounter when we make an intervention plan. Another implication of this study is that Cognitive reconstruction is an effective factor in promoting PTG and alleviating the painful degree of the traumatic events of individual by intervention. we should also promote personal PTG by reconstruct their cognitive, instead of just reducing or eliminating their problematic events.
Key words
College student /
painful degree of traumatic events /
core belief challenge /
post-traumatic growth
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The Role of The Core Belief Challenge between The Painful Degree of Traumatic Events and Post-traumatic Growth[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2019, 42(4): 1010-1016
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