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Article Excerpt
The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI; R. G. Tedeschi & L. G. Calhoun, 1996) was used to measure the growth of university students (N = 347). Results were compared with those of trauma studies and indicate that the PTGI is a general measure of growth suitable for future nontrauma studies. Results reflect a minimal relationship between growth and stress.
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Numerous studies have documented positive psychological changes that occur during the years that follow a wide variety of extremely negative life experiences (e.g., Linley & Joseph, 2004; McMillen & Fisher, 1998; Park, Cohen, & Murch, 1996; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). This focus on positive change reflects the current interest in positive psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) and wellness (Cowen, 1994). The measure of choice in many of these studies has been the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) of Tedeschi and Calhoun (1996). Although researchers have reported a variety of magnitudes and factor structures among samples of PTGI scores (see review in Weiss & Berger, 2006), they have generally failed to find the five-factor structure originally reported by Tedeschi and Calhoun (1996). Researchers have speculated that variations in PTGI factor structures reflect different types of trauma and differences among survivor demographics.
POSTTRAUMATIC GROWTH
Posttraumatic growth is defined as a group of specific positive changes across five domains involving the self, interpersonal relationships, and philosophy of life that occur in response to extremely negative experiences (e.g., military combat, life-threatening medical conditions, internment in concentration camps, and refugee status; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). Thus, posttraumatic growth implies both an outcome (growth) and a process (struggle after a traumatic event). Maslow (1968), Rogers (1961), and Ryff (1989) described growth in terms of positive changes that are generally similar to those embodied in the PTGI but do not require trauma as a catalyst. Although the PTGI was developed specifically to measure growth after trauma, its developers suggested that growth might also result from other kinds of experiences and pointed to the need for empirical studies to address this possibility (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). Tedeschi and Calhoun (2004) also implied that the PTGI might be a suitable measure of growth without regard to the nature of precipitating events:
The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory ... was developed to allow quantification of the experience of growth (p. 5).... It should be apparent ... that personal growth probably has a common core, although it occurs for different reasons. The five domains of the PTGI are probably a good representation of the breadth of growth that people can experience. (p. 14)
In fact, the PTGI has already been used in at least two studies to measure growth that is not related to trauma among members of small comparison groups who have not experienced trauma (Cordova, Cunningham, Carlson, & Andrykowski, 2001; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996).
The primary purpose of this study was to further evaluate the PTGI as a general measure of growth beyond the posttraumatic applications for which it was specifically developed. The design strategy required (a) analysis of the growth described by a sample of university students during a single semester of their last year as undergraduates and (b) comparison of the results with those of selected posttraumatic studies. Senior-level college students were of particular interest for the purposes of this study because they are thought to experience growth and development (Chickering & Reisser, 1993; Perry, 1970) in response to course work, extracurricular activities, and environmental influences (Chickering, 1969) as they prepare for life after graduation.
The current study design was based on the assumption that participant growth reflected a wide variety of growth-related processes and experiences (traumatic and otherwise). We hoped that the results would contribute to a better understanding of the factor structure of the PTGI and the relationship between growth associated with a variety of typical developmental experiences and posttraumatic growth.
STRESS AND GROWTH
The research purposes of this study did not require collection of information about the incidence of trauma among participants. However, it seemed important to investigate the possibility that growth as measured by the PTGI might be related to the level of stress experienced during the semester of interest. The relationship between stress and posttraumatic growth is not clear. For example, in one study, Park et al. (1996) found weak relationships between growth and levels of initial stress after a negative event (r = .18, N = 506, p < .001) and between growth and current stress long after the same event (r = .14, N = 506, p < .001). However, they failed to find similar relationships in a second study. Tedeschi and Calhoun (2004) proposed a model of growth in which highly stressful experiences initiate growth processes by challenging stable psychological schema. They suggested that extraordinary positive experiences could serve a similar function and that successive experiences of normal development might lead to gradual growth over time. Their model allows for concurrent or lagged experiences of growth and stress but without postulating a correlational relationship.
The current study included use of a version of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) of Levenstein et al. (1993) as abbreviated by Fliege et al. (2005). This measure was included to allow investigation of any relationship between stress and growth from experiences of all kinds.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This study was undertaken to evaluate the PTGI as a general measure of growth by using it to answer two research questions. Both questions addressed the growth reported by college students during a single semester of their final year as compared with the growth reported by participants in a variety of posttraumatic growth studies. Neither question required the testing of formal hypotheses. A third research question addressed the...
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