Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 2015, 56, 567–572
DOI: 10.1111/sjop.12237
Personality and Social Psychology Longitudinal relationships between gratitude, deliberate rumination, and posttraumatic growth in adolescents following the Wenchuan earthquake in China XIAO ZHOU and XINCHUN WU School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Zhou, X. & Wu, X. (2015). Longitudinal relationships between gratitude, deliberate rumination, and posttraumatic growth in adolescents following the Wenchuan earthquake in China. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 56, 567–572. To examine the longitudinal relationship between gratitude, deliberate rumination and posttraumatic growth (PTG) in the adolescent survivors after the Wenchuan earthquake, 217 adolescent survivors were randomly selected from several primary and secondary schools in the county of Wenchuan, and were assessed by questionnaires at three and a half years (T1), four and a half years (T2), five and a half years (T3) after the Wenchuan earthquake, respectively. The results found that there was a one-way predictive relationship of gratitude onto PTG from T1 to T3, and gratitude predicted deliberate rumination from T1 to T2 but not T2 to T3. Deliberate rumination only had a significant positive effect on PTG from T2 to T3, and PTG only predicted deliberate rumination from T1 to T2. These results indicated that gratitude could be a stable predictive factor for the development of PTG, and gratitude could also affect PTG by deliberate rumination. In addition, the predictive effect between deliberate rumination and PTG is unstable with time change. Key words: Adolescents, gratitude, deliberate rumination, posttraumatic growth. Xinchun Wu, School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, No. 19 Xinjiekou Wai Street, Beijing, China. Tel: +86 10 58808190; e-mail: [email protected]
INTRODUCTION
GRATITUDE AND PTG
As one of the most destructive natural disasters, the earthquake that occurred in Wenchuan, Sichuan, China in 2008 caused widespread loss of life and property. Except for some negative psychological reactions such as depression and anxiety, adolescent survivors of this earthquake also reported positive changes after the earthquake (Ying, Lin, Wu et al., 2014; Yu, Lau, Zhang et al., 2010). The term “posttraumatic growth” (PTG) was coined by Tedeschi and Calhoun (1995) to describe positive life changes following traumatic events, and it is considered as a common positive psychological outcome after trauma. Affected by related model of PTG, some researchers suggested that gratitude and deliberate rumination could be important explanatory factors for the reason why PTG is pervasive among the traumatic survivors (Cann, Calhoun, Tedeschi, Triplett, Vishnevsky & Lindstrom, 2011; Lindstrom, Cann, Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2013; Vernon, Dillon & Steiner, 2009). But more than a psychological outcome, some also regarded PTG as a coping style (Leung, 2011) that was assumed to influence gratitude and deliberate rumination (Hassani, Afrasiabifar, Khoshknab & Yaqhmaei, 2009; Hobfoll, Hall, Canetti-Nisim, Galea, Johnson & Palmieri, 2007). Constrained by the nature of cross-sectional design, we were unable to determine the temporal or causal relationship from the previous studies conducted to test the theoretical assumptions above. Thus, the present study was to examine longitudinal relationship between gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG in the adolescent survivors after the Wenchuan earthquake, and to find that a temporal or causal relationship among these variables.
Gratitude is the positive emotion one feels when another person has intentionally given, or attempted to give, him/her something of value, which represents a common ingredient of resilience and post-traumatic growth (Ruini & Vescovelli, 2013). Broaden-andbuild theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2004) emphasized that gratitude as an positive emotions can broaden thought– action repertoires and build enduring personal resources over time, which in turn add one’s adaptive activities and optimal experiences (McCullough, Emmons & Tsang, 2002), make traumatic survivors form positive cognition to traumatic clue, and help them to reestablish the meaning of world after trauma (Wu, Zhou, Liu & Chen, 2014). In addition, gratitude can also improve the interpersonal relationship (Algoe, 2005), in turn help traumatic survivors to get more social support and relieve their negative affects, and finally PTG comes into being. Someone was exposed to different kinds of traumatic events, the character strength “gratitude” would increase and be correlated to PTG (Peterson, Park, Pole, D’Andrea & Seligman, 2008). Similarly, Vernon et al. (2009) also reported the positive association between gratitude and growth in a sample of women with trauma histories. After the Wenchuan earthquake, Zhou, An, Wu, Chen and Long (2014a) examined the relationship between gratitude, social support and PTG, and has found that gratitude is an important predictive factor for PTG. However, the Janus-face model of PTG suggested that PTG can be a posttraumatic coping style, which may affect individuals’ cognition of others or world (Maercker & Zoellner, 2004), and in turn may have an effect on gratitude. Traumatic survivors with PTG can express their appreciation/gratitude to
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568 X. Zhou and X. Wu world and others (e.g., Thank God I’m alive), which can be protective factor for their adjustment after trauma (Leung, 2011). An possible explanation is that individuals who reported PTG have more beneficial appraisals (such as positive viewpoint on self, others and the world), which can be helpful for them to build good interpersonal relationships and get more support, which in turn elicits their gratitude (Wood, Maltby, Stewart, Linley & Joseph, 2008). For example, a qualitative study on Myocardial Infarction patients conducted by Hassani et al. (2009) found that patients who had positive change reported more appreciation of life and health. Similarly, Chun and Lee (2008) emphasized that gratitude can be experienced by traumatized people who have high level of PTG. Thus, it is likely that gratitude may have an effect on PTG.
DELIBERATE RUMINATION AND PTG In addition to gratitude, deliberate rumination also can be an important predictive factor for PTG. Calhoun, Cann, Tedeschi and McMillan (2000) emphasized that deliberate rumination refers to one’s deliberate reexamining and contemplation about the traumatic event. Tedeschi and his colleagues have done many studies on the relationships between deliberate rumination and PTG, and found that deliberate rumination was an important predictive factor for PTG (Cann et al., 2011; Triplett, Tedeschi, Cann, Calhoun & Reeve, 2012). Here, PTG model of Calhoun and Tedeschi (2006) suggested that reexamining positively traumatic experiences, it is helpful for traumatic survivors understand the experience, finding meaning, and ultimately producing a revised life narrative, which in turn realizes PTG. Thus, deliberate rumination can be conceptualized as a predictive factor of PTG. Inconsistent with the assumption of Calhoun and Tedeschi (2006) PTG model, however, Hobfoll et al. (2007) emphasized that PTG may serve a role of cognitive coping strategy following an extreme stress, which would influence the cognitive process of traumatized people. More importantly, the Janus-face model of PTG also emphasizes that the core of PTG involves two cognitive sides: constructive and illusory (Maercker & Zoellner, 2004). They can affect the cognitive process of traumatized people, and the constructive side can help traumatic survivors face up to the traumatic clues, and think positively on the negative results from traumatic events. Therefore, PTG can be assumed to associate with deliberate thinking on trauma, and to grow over time (Scrignaro, Barni & Magrin, 2011). In other words, PTG may relate to deliberate rumination.
GRATITUDE AND DELIBERATE RUMINATION More importantly, gratitude has been proposed to be closely related to cognitive process. It can widen individuals’ attention scope and enhance their ability to see the “big picture” (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005); broaden cognition scope and make the cognition be characterized by integrity, openness and elasticity (Johnson & Fredrickson, 2005), which can in turn result in individuals’ positive thoughts on traumatic events. For example, Wood, Joseph and Linley (2007) found that gratitude had positive effect on positive cognition of individuals who had experienced stressful events. © 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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However, ruminating on the traumatic event and its results deliberately, the survivors of post-trauma may have positive external attribution for their benefits, and express their grateful emotion to others or the world such as “I’m grateful for surviving” or “I’m grateful for others’ help” and so on. Therefore, Froh, Sefick and Emmons (2008) supposed that cognitive appraisal may be an important enhancing factor for experiencing gratitude. From this perspective, gratitude is supposed to relate to deliberate rumination. Reviewing the relationship among gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, the findings suggested that there is a mixed relationship among them, and no consistent conclusion on this relationship has been achieved. A possible explanation is their difference in theoretical perspectives. It can also be attributed to the cross-sectional designs, which fail to detect the causal relationships between the catalyst variables and the outcome variables, making it difficult to elucidate the nature of the association. Therefore, longitudinal studies are needed to elucidate the pathways between gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, and to find the specific causal relationship among them. Integrating previous theories and studies, we infer a bidirectional relationship between gratitude, deliberation rumination and PTG. More importantly, Sameroff’s (2009) transactional model of development considers development as a product of continuous dynamic interactions between individuals and the experiences stemmed from their social settings, which also offers a theoretical framework for the transactional nature of the relationships among gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG. What is core to the transactional model is the analytic emphasis placed on the bidirectional, interdependent effects. However, to date, no study has explored the bidirectional relationships among gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG simultaneously, and their specific causal paths also remain unclear. In order to assess the specific causal paths among gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, and examine the assumption that there is bidirectional relationship among them, a cross-lagged model will be established in the current study.
METHOD Participants and procedures The present data were collected as part of a longitudinal study of psychological adjustment amongst child survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake. All the adolescents had been directly exposed to this earthquake. For the present study, 217 adolescent survivors were randomly selected in the county of Wenchuan, which was most severely affected by the earthquake. Actually, there are only two middle schools in the county of Wenchuan. We selected the middle school students to participate in our study for a more convenient investigation in their post-traumatic reactions in a longitudinal way. Then, we chose the specific grade, and randomly selected several classes from two schools. All adolescents had no psychiatric conditions prior to the earthquake. The mean age of the adolescents was 14.18 (SD = 1.39) years at the first measuring wave, with an age range from 12 to 20 years. Of the 217 participants, 109 (50.2%) were female and 108 (49.8%) were male. This project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Beijing Normal University and the local education authorities (i.e., county departments of education) as well as the participating school principals. Written informed consent was obtained from school principals and classroom teachers. In China, when research projects which are deemed to
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Longitudinal relationships between gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG 569
provide a service to the students get approved by local education authorities and the school administrators, they do not require parental consent. Thus, the current project was not required to obtain written informed consent from parents. The purpose of the study and the autonomy of the students were highlighted before the survey. Written informed consent was obtained from each subject, and the right of each subject to withdraw from the survey at any time was provided to the students. Three assessments were conducted at different time points under the supervision of trained individuals with Master’s degrees in psychology. The researchers administered the questionnaire packets in a classroom setting without the presence of teachers. Participants were initially asked to provide demographic information including sex and age. They were asked to complete the remaining measures assessing gratitude, rumination and PTG. After the questionnaire packets were completed, participants were told that school psychologists or teachers were available to provide any psychological/counseling services they might need. Of the 217 participants, all of them completed the first assessment three year and a half after the earthquake (T1). At the second assessment, four year and a half after the earthquake (T2), 200 (92.2%) of the original 217 participants completed the survey; 157 (72.4%) completed the third assessment five year and a half after the earthquake (T3). In each followup survey, some students dropped out the school or graduated from the school, thus there are some drop-out rates. To investigate the potential impact of attrition, we tested the differences in demographic variables (e.g., age, gender) and the main study variables (i.e., gratitude, deliberate and PTG) from the first assessment between the longitudinal sample and the subjects who did not follow up. Attrition analysis results showed that there were no significant differences in gender [v2(1) = 0.91, p > 0.05], age [v2(7) = 9.62, p > 0.05], gratitude [t(215) = 1.30, p > 0.05], deliberate rumination [t(215) = 0.15, p > 0.05], PTG [t(215) = 0.23, p > 0.05].
Measures The Gratitude Questionnaire-6 (GQ-6). Gratitude was measured by a modified version of the Gratitude Questionnaire-6 (Zhou et al., 2014a). The original GQ-6 was developed by McCullough et al. (2002) and included six items. Each of the six items was scored on a seven-point scale ranging from 0 (completely disagree) to 6 (completely agree). Among these items, item 3 and 6 were reverse scoring items. The GQ-6 had good internal consistency and construct validity (McCullough et al., 2002). Due to the difference in culture and language, Zhou et al. (2014a) revised the GQ-6 by rewording the items based on the situation of adolescents after the Wenchuan earthquake. In the current study, the revised GQ-6 has a good internal reliability (alpha coefficient was 0.70 at T1, 0.83 at T2 and 0.80 at T3). Event Related Rumination Inventory (ERRI). The modified Event Related Rumination Inventory was adopted to measure adolescents’ intrusive and deliberate rumination (Zhou, Wu, An & Chen, 2014b). The inventory assesses intrusive (10 items) and deliberate rumination (10 items) of recent two weeks. The items were rated on a 6-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 5 (always). The original Event Related Rumination Inventory was developed by Cann et al. (2011) and consisted of 20 items and the following two subscales: the intrusive rumination subscale and the deliberate rumination subscale. Some items of the original scale were reworded to form the modified ERRI (Zhou et al., 2014b). According to the needs of research, this study only used the indicator of deliberate rumination, of which the alpha coefficients for deliberate rumination at T1, T2 and T3 were 0.75, 0.89 and 0.88, respectively. Post-traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI). Posttraumatic growth was measured by a modified version of the Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory (Zhou et al., 2014b). The original Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory was developed by Tedeschi and Calhoun (1996) and consisted of the following five subscales: personal strength; new possibilities; relating to others; appreciation of life; and spiritual change. Each of the 21 items was scored on a six-point scale ranging from 0 (no change) to 5 (very
© 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
great degree of change). The PTGI has good internal consistency and construct, convergent and discriminate validity (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996). For the revised PTGI, there were 22 items with three subscales as follows: perceived changes in self; a changed sense of relationship with others; and a changed philosophy of life. The modified scale demonstrated good reliability and construct validity among the sample of adolescent survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake (Zhou et al., 2014b). In this study, the internal reliability for the modified inventory was good (alpha coefficient for global PTG was 0.89 at T1, 0.90 at T2 and 0.91 at T3).
DATA ANALYSIS As all the data were from the self-reported scales, to free the possible contamination of common method variance to study results, we balanced the item order and kept the investigation anonymous in the measuring process. Moreover, in the process of data analysis, using the Harman one-factor test (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee & Podsakoff, 2003), we absorbed major variables into the exploratory factor analysis, then both the unrotated and rotated results were examined and they both obtained 10 factors with eigenvalue more than 1. Furthermore, the first factor in the un-rotated and rotated analysis explained 10.04% and 7.27% of the variance, respectively. Less than 40% of the variance was explained by the first factor, indicating that there was no significant common method variance in this study. Then, descriptive analyses were conducted to measure the level of gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG. Pearson correlations were calculated to examine the associations among gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. The statistical analyses were conducted using Mplus 6.0 software (Muthen & Muthen, 2010). The missing data were handled by using full information maximum likelihood estimates (FIML) in structural models. Compared with conventional methods of dealing with missing data (e.g., listwise deletion, pairwise deletion), the results produced by the FIML method are less biased and more reliable (Muthen, Kaplan & Hollis, 1987). In addition, to evaluate the model fit, we used chi-square values, the comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and the standardized root mean residual (SRMR). A nonsignificant chi-square indicates a good model-data fit. The general cutoffs for accepting a model were equal to or greater than 0.90 for CFI and TLI, equal to or less than 0.08 for the RMSEA and SRMR (Wen, Hau & Marsh, 2004). To assess the bidirectional relationships between gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, the SEM approach was implemented in a cross-lagged model.
RESULTS Descriptive statistics and correlations Pearson correlations between the major variables were calculated (see Table 1), and there were significant positive correlations between gratitude at T1 and deliberate rumination at T2, PTG at T1 and T2. Gratitude at T2 was related positively to deliberate rumination at T1 and T2 as well as PTG at T1, T2 and T3. Gratitude at T3 was only related positively to PTG at T3 but not
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Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and correlations among study variables
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
T1 Gr T2 Gr T3 Gr T1 DR T2 DR T3 DR T1 PTG T2 PTG T3 PTG
M
SD
1
2
26.18 26.78 28.33 9.52 9.43 8.95 62.58 56.93 60.35
6.42 6.36 5.38 6.18 5.60 5.32 19.83 20.77 19.92
1.00 0.49*** 0.27** 0.11 0.20** 0.09 0.22** 0.25*** 0.13
1.00 0.37*** 0.15* 0.23** 0.10 0.17* 0.32*** 0.30***
3
1.00 0.01 0.03 0.11 0.10 0.03 0.41**
4
5
6
7
8
9
1.00 0.41** 0.42** 0.29*** 0.24*** 0.27***
1.00 0.53** 0.25*** 0.38*** 0.36***
1.00 0.26** 0.31*** 0.42***
1.00 0.38*** 0.37***
1.00 0.42***
1.00
Notes: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Gr = Gratitude, DR = Deliberate rumination.
to deliberate rumination at any time points or PTG at T1 and T2. Moreover, deliberate rumination at all the three time points was related positively to PTG, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Regarding that some confounding variables like gender and age may affect the correlations, we further examined the associations among the major variables after controlling age and gender. The results showed no significant change after the control. This indicated that variables such as gender and age had no virtual effects on the associations among the major variables.
BIDIRECTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS AMONG GRATITUDE, DELIBERATE RUMINATION AND PTG To examine the bidirectional relationships among gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, we established and examined the cross-lagged model as shown in Fig. 1. Figure 1 shows that the fit indices of cross-lagged model are good [v2(64) = 124.280, CFI = 0.962, TLI = 0.938, RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.066 (0.048– 0.083), SRMR = 0.041]. Path analyses revealed that gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG were associated with one another at T1 and T2. Gratitude at T3 was related to PTG but not to deliberate rumination at T3, and deliberate rumination at T3 was
also related to PTG at T3. In terms of the cross-lagged paths representing the influence of gratitude/deliberate rumination on PTG, gratitude at T1 significantly predicted PTG at T2, and gratitude at T2 significantly predicted PTG at T3; deliberate rumination at T1 did not predict significantly PTG at T2, but deliberate rumination at T2 significantly predicted PTG at T3. Moreover, gratitude at T1 significantly predicted PTG at T3 through deliberate rumination at T2, and the indirect path coefficient is 0.02 (0.11 9 0.17). Regarding the influence of PTG on gratitude/deliberate rumination, PTG at T1 significantly predicted deliberate rumination at T2 but did not predict gratitude at T2, and PTG at T2 did not significantly predict deliberate rumination or gratitude at T3. As for the influence of gratitude on deliberate rumination, gratitude at T1 significantly predicted deliberate rumination at T2, gratitude at T2 did not predict significantly deliberate rumination at T3.
DISCUSSION The present study conducted cross-lagged SEM to examine the temporal sequence of gratitude, deliberate rumination, and PTG in the adolescent survivors who have experienced the Wenchuan
Fig. 1. The cross-lagged model with bidirectional effects between gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG. Notes: Dashed lines indicate insignificant paths. Gr = Gratitude, DR = Deliberate rumination; Rectangle = observable variable, Ellipse = latent variable; PTG latent variable was evaluated using perceived changes in self, a changed sense of relationship with others, and a changed philosophy of life. © 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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earthquake. Consistent with the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2004), the results showed that gratitude at 3.5 and 4.5 years after earthquake predicted PTG at 4.5 and 5.5 years after the earthquake respectively, while from the reverse viewpoint, which indicated that gratitude is a predictive factor for PTG over time. Here, grateful response to received benefits can, over time, produce change in the quality of recipients’ perceived social relationship (Algoe, Haidt & Gable, 2008), and in turn adds the likelihood of positive experiences, even under the condition of chronic stress. As a matter of fact, as a positive emotion, gratitude is also one of human’s evolved adaptation mechanisms that can in the moment broaden individuals’ “thought-action” repertoire and build some enduring personal resources over time (Fredrickson, 2001), gratitude may also have long-term survival benefits by making people more open-minded and flexible, and ultimately they can see and take advantage of opportunities in the environment better (Johnson & Fredrickson, 2005). Another finding was that deliberate rumination at 4.5 years after earthquake predicted significantly PTG at 5.5 years after earthquake. This was consistent with previous studies (Cann, Calhoun, Tedeschi & Solomon, 2010; Taku, Calhoun, Cann & Tedeschi, 2008) and supported the PTG model of Calhoun and Tedeschi (2006). However, the result with an absence of the predictive effect of deliberate rumination on PTG between 3.5 years and 4.5 years is not consistent with previous studies, and this indicated an unstable relationship between deliberate rumination and PTG at different time after trauma as time changes. Replication and extension of the current findings will be important for increasing confidence in this inference. The results also suggested that there was a positive longitudinal effect of gratitude on PTG over and above continuity. Gratitude at 3.5 years predicted PTG at 5.5 years through deliberate rumination at 4.5 years. These results supported the broaden-andbuild theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2004). Adolescents who respond to the surroundings more gratefully are more likely to have positive thoughts and deliberate rumination on the traumatic experience and more likely to reconstruct positively the meaning of the world after trauma, and in turn realize their PTG. The mediating effect of deliberate rumination implies that besides the direct positive effect on PTG, gratitude also has an indirect positive effect on PTG by deliberate rumination. An interesting finding in this study was that PTG did not predict the sequent gratitude between 3.5 years and 5.5 years, but predicted deliberate rumination from 3.5 years to 4.5 years, which paralleled with the Janus-face model of PTG (Maercker & Zoellner, 2004). The constructed sides of PTG are conducive for individuals to construct the meanings of the world, and the increase in the likelihood of world recognition affects the development of deliberate rumination. However, this predictive relationship disappeared between 4.5 years and 5.5 years; a possible explanation lies in another destructive earthquake occurred in Lushan city, Sichuan on April 20, 2013, which may affect the adolescents negatively in Wenchuan which is near to Lushan. This earthquake led them to recollect the traumatic clues and experiences in the Wenchuan earthquake, and in turn result in negative cognition. For example, some adolescents said that “I’m unfortunate, why do earthquakes always occur in Sichuan,” “The © 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
world is unfair to us” and so on. Thus, although the adolescents have achieved PTG, they cannot deliberately ruminate on the related-traumatic clues because of these views on the world and self. Although most of the study’s theoretically derived predictions were supported, several limitations of the study should be noted. First, all variables were measured by self-report scales, thus associations between the main measures might be affected by common-method variance. Second, the absence of a specific measure assessing the level of exposure to the earthquake may limit the interpretation of the results. Then, the traumatic severity can be included in the future study. Third, except for gender and age, this study did not take other sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., socioeconomic status, parental education, etc.) into consideration. Thus the potential influence of other sociodemographic characteristics could not be excluded. More importantly, the Lushan earthquake may have an effect on the results, but the study did not exclude the potential effect of this earthquake. It will be helpful for future studies to assess whether the bidirectional relationships observed in this study persist after controlling this potential influence. Even with these limitations, to our knowledge, this study is among the first to examine the longitudinal relation of gratitude and deliberate rumination to PTG. Furthermore, it contributes new knowledge to previous theoretical and empirical studies on the temporal or causal relationship between gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, and has indicated that gratitude is an important and stable promoting factor for PTG and the relation of deliberate rumination to PTG is unstable between different time points. Moreover, this study also provides an important implication for the intervention and health-enhancement for adolescent survivors after the Wenchuan earthquake. School psychologists can conduct the gratitude-based intervention, for example, gratitude journal. The school psychologists may ask adolescents to indentify five things for which they are grateful each time they journal (Young & Hutchinson, 2012), for example, others’ smile to me, others’ help for us and so on. In addition, school psychologists can also guide students to positively think about the traumatic events and positive changes of the self. Through these ways, the adolescents may conceive more gratitude to others, which can be very helpful for them to reconstruct the meaning of post-traumatic world, and to furthermore realize PTG. This research was supported by the Key Projects of Humanities and Social Sciences Key Research Base, Ministry of Education, China (Grant No. 11JJD190006). We sincerely appreciate the students and teachers who devoted their time and interest by voluntarily participating in our research.
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Scand J Psychol 56 (2015) Ruini, C. & Vescovelli, F. (2013). The role of gratitude in breast cancer: Its relationships with post-traumatic growth, psychological well-being and distress. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14, 263–274. Sameroff, A. (2009). The transactional model. In A. Sameroff (Ed.), The transactional model of development:How children and contexts shape each other (pp. 3–21). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Scrignaro, M., Barni, S. & Magrin, M. E. (2011). The combined contribution of social support and coping strategies in predicting posttraumatic growth: A longitudinal study on cancer patients. PsychoOncology, 20, 823–831. Taku, K., Calhoun, L. G., Cann, A. & Tedeschi, R. G. (2008). The role of rumination in the coexistence of distress and posttraumatic growth among bereaved Japanese university students. Death Studies, 32, 428–444. Tedeschi, R. G. & Calhoun, L. G. (1995). Trauma and transformation: Growing in the aftermath of suffering. Thousand Oaks: CA: Sage. Tedeschi, R. G. & Calhoun, L. G. (1996). The posttraumatic growth inventory: Measuring the positive legacy of trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 9, 455–471. Triplett, K. N., Tedeschi, R. G., Cann, A., Calhoun, L. G. & Reeve, C. L. (2012). Posttraumatic growth, meaning in life, and life satisfaction in response to trauma. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 4, 400–404, 4. Vernon, L. L., Dillon, J. M. & Steiner, A. R. W. (2009). Proactive coping, gratitude, and posttraumatic stress disorder in college women. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 22, 117–127. Wen, Z. L., Hau, K. T. & Marsh, H. W. (2004). Structual equation model testing: Cutoff criteria for goodness of fit indices and Chi-square test. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 36, 186–194. Wood, A. M., Joseph, S. & Linley, P. A. (2007). Coping style as a psychological resource of grateful people. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 26, 1076–1093. Wood, A. M., Maltby, J., Stewart, N., Linley, P. A. & Joseph, S. (2008). A social-cognitive model of trait and state levels of gratitude. Emotion, 8, 281–290. Wu, X., Zhou, X., Liu, L. & Chen, J. (2014). Social support and deliberate rumination mediate the relationship between gratitude and post-traumatic growth in adolescents at 4.5 years after Wenchuan earthquake. Psychological Science, 37, 1148–1153. Ying, L. H., Lin, C. D., Wu, X. C., Chen, C., Greenberger, E. & An, Y. Y. (2014). Trauma severity and control beliefs as predictors of posttraumatic growth among adolescent survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 6, 192–198. Young, M. E. & Hutchinson, T. S. (2012). The rediscovery of gratitude: Implications for counseling practice. The Journal of Humanistic Counseling, 51, 99–113. Yu, X. N., Lau, J. T. F., Zhang, J., Mak, W. W. S., Choi, K. C., Lui, W. W. S. & Chan, E. Y. Y. (2010). Posttraumatic growth and reduced suicidal ideation among adolescents at month 1 after the Sichuan Earthquake. Journal of Affective Disorders, 123, 327–331. Zhou, X., An, Y., Wu, X., Chen, H. & Long, C. (2014a). Social support mediate the associations between gratitude and post-traumatic growth in middle school students at three years after Wenchuan earthquake. Psychological Development and Education, 30, 68–74. Zhou, X., Wu, X., An, Y. & Chen, J. (2014b). The roles of rumination and social support in the associations between core belief challenge and post-traumatic growth among adolescent survivors after the Wenchuan earthquake. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 46, 1–12. Received 12 November 2014, accepted 4 May 2015
DOI: 10.1111/sjop.12237
Personality and Social Psychology Longitudinal relationships between gratitude, deliberate rumination, and posttraumatic growth in adolescents following the Wenchuan earthquake in China XIAO ZHOU and XINCHUN WU School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Zhou, X. & Wu, X. (2015). Longitudinal relationships between gratitude, deliberate rumination, and posttraumatic growth in adolescents following the Wenchuan earthquake in China. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 56, 567–572. To examine the longitudinal relationship between gratitude, deliberate rumination and posttraumatic growth (PTG) in the adolescent survivors after the Wenchuan earthquake, 217 adolescent survivors were randomly selected from several primary and secondary schools in the county of Wenchuan, and were assessed by questionnaires at three and a half years (T1), four and a half years (T2), five and a half years (T3) after the Wenchuan earthquake, respectively. The results found that there was a one-way predictive relationship of gratitude onto PTG from T1 to T3, and gratitude predicted deliberate rumination from T1 to T2 but not T2 to T3. Deliberate rumination only had a significant positive effect on PTG from T2 to T3, and PTG only predicted deliberate rumination from T1 to T2. These results indicated that gratitude could be a stable predictive factor for the development of PTG, and gratitude could also affect PTG by deliberate rumination. In addition, the predictive effect between deliberate rumination and PTG is unstable with time change. Key words: Adolescents, gratitude, deliberate rumination, posttraumatic growth. Xinchun Wu, School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, No. 19 Xinjiekou Wai Street, Beijing, China. Tel: +86 10 58808190; e-mail: [email protected]
INTRODUCTION
GRATITUDE AND PTG
As one of the most destructive natural disasters, the earthquake that occurred in Wenchuan, Sichuan, China in 2008 caused widespread loss of life and property. Except for some negative psychological reactions such as depression and anxiety, adolescent survivors of this earthquake also reported positive changes after the earthquake (Ying, Lin, Wu et al., 2014; Yu, Lau, Zhang et al., 2010). The term “posttraumatic growth” (PTG) was coined by Tedeschi and Calhoun (1995) to describe positive life changes following traumatic events, and it is considered as a common positive psychological outcome after trauma. Affected by related model of PTG, some researchers suggested that gratitude and deliberate rumination could be important explanatory factors for the reason why PTG is pervasive among the traumatic survivors (Cann, Calhoun, Tedeschi, Triplett, Vishnevsky & Lindstrom, 2011; Lindstrom, Cann, Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2013; Vernon, Dillon & Steiner, 2009). But more than a psychological outcome, some also regarded PTG as a coping style (Leung, 2011) that was assumed to influence gratitude and deliberate rumination (Hassani, Afrasiabifar, Khoshknab & Yaqhmaei, 2009; Hobfoll, Hall, Canetti-Nisim, Galea, Johnson & Palmieri, 2007). Constrained by the nature of cross-sectional design, we were unable to determine the temporal or causal relationship from the previous studies conducted to test the theoretical assumptions above. Thus, the present study was to examine longitudinal relationship between gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG in the adolescent survivors after the Wenchuan earthquake, and to find that a temporal or causal relationship among these variables.
Gratitude is the positive emotion one feels when another person has intentionally given, or attempted to give, him/her something of value, which represents a common ingredient of resilience and post-traumatic growth (Ruini & Vescovelli, 2013). Broaden-andbuild theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2004) emphasized that gratitude as an positive emotions can broaden thought– action repertoires and build enduring personal resources over time, which in turn add one’s adaptive activities and optimal experiences (McCullough, Emmons & Tsang, 2002), make traumatic survivors form positive cognition to traumatic clue, and help them to reestablish the meaning of world after trauma (Wu, Zhou, Liu & Chen, 2014). In addition, gratitude can also improve the interpersonal relationship (Algoe, 2005), in turn help traumatic survivors to get more social support and relieve their negative affects, and finally PTG comes into being. Someone was exposed to different kinds of traumatic events, the character strength “gratitude” would increase and be correlated to PTG (Peterson, Park, Pole, D’Andrea & Seligman, 2008). Similarly, Vernon et al. (2009) also reported the positive association between gratitude and growth in a sample of women with trauma histories. After the Wenchuan earthquake, Zhou, An, Wu, Chen and Long (2014a) examined the relationship between gratitude, social support and PTG, and has found that gratitude is an important predictive factor for PTG. However, the Janus-face model of PTG suggested that PTG can be a posttraumatic coping style, which may affect individuals’ cognition of others or world (Maercker & Zoellner, 2004), and in turn may have an effect on gratitude. Traumatic survivors with PTG can express their appreciation/gratitude to
© 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
568 X. Zhou and X. Wu world and others (e.g., Thank God I’m alive), which can be protective factor for their adjustment after trauma (Leung, 2011). An possible explanation is that individuals who reported PTG have more beneficial appraisals (such as positive viewpoint on self, others and the world), which can be helpful for them to build good interpersonal relationships and get more support, which in turn elicits their gratitude (Wood, Maltby, Stewart, Linley & Joseph, 2008). For example, a qualitative study on Myocardial Infarction patients conducted by Hassani et al. (2009) found that patients who had positive change reported more appreciation of life and health. Similarly, Chun and Lee (2008) emphasized that gratitude can be experienced by traumatized people who have high level of PTG. Thus, it is likely that gratitude may have an effect on PTG.
DELIBERATE RUMINATION AND PTG In addition to gratitude, deliberate rumination also can be an important predictive factor for PTG. Calhoun, Cann, Tedeschi and McMillan (2000) emphasized that deliberate rumination refers to one’s deliberate reexamining and contemplation about the traumatic event. Tedeschi and his colleagues have done many studies on the relationships between deliberate rumination and PTG, and found that deliberate rumination was an important predictive factor for PTG (Cann et al., 2011; Triplett, Tedeschi, Cann, Calhoun & Reeve, 2012). Here, PTG model of Calhoun and Tedeschi (2006) suggested that reexamining positively traumatic experiences, it is helpful for traumatic survivors understand the experience, finding meaning, and ultimately producing a revised life narrative, which in turn realizes PTG. Thus, deliberate rumination can be conceptualized as a predictive factor of PTG. Inconsistent with the assumption of Calhoun and Tedeschi (2006) PTG model, however, Hobfoll et al. (2007) emphasized that PTG may serve a role of cognitive coping strategy following an extreme stress, which would influence the cognitive process of traumatized people. More importantly, the Janus-face model of PTG also emphasizes that the core of PTG involves two cognitive sides: constructive and illusory (Maercker & Zoellner, 2004). They can affect the cognitive process of traumatized people, and the constructive side can help traumatic survivors face up to the traumatic clues, and think positively on the negative results from traumatic events. Therefore, PTG can be assumed to associate with deliberate thinking on trauma, and to grow over time (Scrignaro, Barni & Magrin, 2011). In other words, PTG may relate to deliberate rumination.
GRATITUDE AND DELIBERATE RUMINATION More importantly, gratitude has been proposed to be closely related to cognitive process. It can widen individuals’ attention scope and enhance their ability to see the “big picture” (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005); broaden cognition scope and make the cognition be characterized by integrity, openness and elasticity (Johnson & Fredrickson, 2005), which can in turn result in individuals’ positive thoughts on traumatic events. For example, Wood, Joseph and Linley (2007) found that gratitude had positive effect on positive cognition of individuals who had experienced stressful events. © 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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However, ruminating on the traumatic event and its results deliberately, the survivors of post-trauma may have positive external attribution for their benefits, and express their grateful emotion to others or the world such as “I’m grateful for surviving” or “I’m grateful for others’ help” and so on. Therefore, Froh, Sefick and Emmons (2008) supposed that cognitive appraisal may be an important enhancing factor for experiencing gratitude. From this perspective, gratitude is supposed to relate to deliberate rumination. Reviewing the relationship among gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, the findings suggested that there is a mixed relationship among them, and no consistent conclusion on this relationship has been achieved. A possible explanation is their difference in theoretical perspectives. It can also be attributed to the cross-sectional designs, which fail to detect the causal relationships between the catalyst variables and the outcome variables, making it difficult to elucidate the nature of the association. Therefore, longitudinal studies are needed to elucidate the pathways between gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, and to find the specific causal relationship among them. Integrating previous theories and studies, we infer a bidirectional relationship between gratitude, deliberation rumination and PTG. More importantly, Sameroff’s (2009) transactional model of development considers development as a product of continuous dynamic interactions between individuals and the experiences stemmed from their social settings, which also offers a theoretical framework for the transactional nature of the relationships among gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG. What is core to the transactional model is the analytic emphasis placed on the bidirectional, interdependent effects. However, to date, no study has explored the bidirectional relationships among gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG simultaneously, and their specific causal paths also remain unclear. In order to assess the specific causal paths among gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, and examine the assumption that there is bidirectional relationship among them, a cross-lagged model will be established in the current study.
METHOD Participants and procedures The present data were collected as part of a longitudinal study of psychological adjustment amongst child survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake. All the adolescents had been directly exposed to this earthquake. For the present study, 217 adolescent survivors were randomly selected in the county of Wenchuan, which was most severely affected by the earthquake. Actually, there are only two middle schools in the county of Wenchuan. We selected the middle school students to participate in our study for a more convenient investigation in their post-traumatic reactions in a longitudinal way. Then, we chose the specific grade, and randomly selected several classes from two schools. All adolescents had no psychiatric conditions prior to the earthquake. The mean age of the adolescents was 14.18 (SD = 1.39) years at the first measuring wave, with an age range from 12 to 20 years. Of the 217 participants, 109 (50.2%) were female and 108 (49.8%) were male. This project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Beijing Normal University and the local education authorities (i.e., county departments of education) as well as the participating school principals. Written informed consent was obtained from school principals and classroom teachers. In China, when research projects which are deemed to
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provide a service to the students get approved by local education authorities and the school administrators, they do not require parental consent. Thus, the current project was not required to obtain written informed consent from parents. The purpose of the study and the autonomy of the students were highlighted before the survey. Written informed consent was obtained from each subject, and the right of each subject to withdraw from the survey at any time was provided to the students. Three assessments were conducted at different time points under the supervision of trained individuals with Master’s degrees in psychology. The researchers administered the questionnaire packets in a classroom setting without the presence of teachers. Participants were initially asked to provide demographic information including sex and age. They were asked to complete the remaining measures assessing gratitude, rumination and PTG. After the questionnaire packets were completed, participants were told that school psychologists or teachers were available to provide any psychological/counseling services they might need. Of the 217 participants, all of them completed the first assessment three year and a half after the earthquake (T1). At the second assessment, four year and a half after the earthquake (T2), 200 (92.2%) of the original 217 participants completed the survey; 157 (72.4%) completed the third assessment five year and a half after the earthquake (T3). In each followup survey, some students dropped out the school or graduated from the school, thus there are some drop-out rates. To investigate the potential impact of attrition, we tested the differences in demographic variables (e.g., age, gender) and the main study variables (i.e., gratitude, deliberate and PTG) from the first assessment between the longitudinal sample and the subjects who did not follow up. Attrition analysis results showed that there were no significant differences in gender [v2(1) = 0.91, p > 0.05], age [v2(7) = 9.62, p > 0.05], gratitude [t(215) = 1.30, p > 0.05], deliberate rumination [t(215) = 0.15, p > 0.05], PTG [t(215) = 0.23, p > 0.05].
Measures The Gratitude Questionnaire-6 (GQ-6). Gratitude was measured by a modified version of the Gratitude Questionnaire-6 (Zhou et al., 2014a). The original GQ-6 was developed by McCullough et al. (2002) and included six items. Each of the six items was scored on a seven-point scale ranging from 0 (completely disagree) to 6 (completely agree). Among these items, item 3 and 6 were reverse scoring items. The GQ-6 had good internal consistency and construct validity (McCullough et al., 2002). Due to the difference in culture and language, Zhou et al. (2014a) revised the GQ-6 by rewording the items based on the situation of adolescents after the Wenchuan earthquake. In the current study, the revised GQ-6 has a good internal reliability (alpha coefficient was 0.70 at T1, 0.83 at T2 and 0.80 at T3). Event Related Rumination Inventory (ERRI). The modified Event Related Rumination Inventory was adopted to measure adolescents’ intrusive and deliberate rumination (Zhou, Wu, An & Chen, 2014b). The inventory assesses intrusive (10 items) and deliberate rumination (10 items) of recent two weeks. The items were rated on a 6-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 5 (always). The original Event Related Rumination Inventory was developed by Cann et al. (2011) and consisted of 20 items and the following two subscales: the intrusive rumination subscale and the deliberate rumination subscale. Some items of the original scale were reworded to form the modified ERRI (Zhou et al., 2014b). According to the needs of research, this study only used the indicator of deliberate rumination, of which the alpha coefficients for deliberate rumination at T1, T2 and T3 were 0.75, 0.89 and 0.88, respectively. Post-traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI). Posttraumatic growth was measured by a modified version of the Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory (Zhou et al., 2014b). The original Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory was developed by Tedeschi and Calhoun (1996) and consisted of the following five subscales: personal strength; new possibilities; relating to others; appreciation of life; and spiritual change. Each of the 21 items was scored on a six-point scale ranging from 0 (no change) to 5 (very
© 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
great degree of change). The PTGI has good internal consistency and construct, convergent and discriminate validity (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996). For the revised PTGI, there were 22 items with three subscales as follows: perceived changes in self; a changed sense of relationship with others; and a changed philosophy of life. The modified scale demonstrated good reliability and construct validity among the sample of adolescent survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake (Zhou et al., 2014b). In this study, the internal reliability for the modified inventory was good (alpha coefficient for global PTG was 0.89 at T1, 0.90 at T2 and 0.91 at T3).
DATA ANALYSIS As all the data were from the self-reported scales, to free the possible contamination of common method variance to study results, we balanced the item order and kept the investigation anonymous in the measuring process. Moreover, in the process of data analysis, using the Harman one-factor test (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee & Podsakoff, 2003), we absorbed major variables into the exploratory factor analysis, then both the unrotated and rotated results were examined and they both obtained 10 factors with eigenvalue more than 1. Furthermore, the first factor in the un-rotated and rotated analysis explained 10.04% and 7.27% of the variance, respectively. Less than 40% of the variance was explained by the first factor, indicating that there was no significant common method variance in this study. Then, descriptive analyses were conducted to measure the level of gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG. Pearson correlations were calculated to examine the associations among gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. The statistical analyses were conducted using Mplus 6.0 software (Muthen & Muthen, 2010). The missing data were handled by using full information maximum likelihood estimates (FIML) in structural models. Compared with conventional methods of dealing with missing data (e.g., listwise deletion, pairwise deletion), the results produced by the FIML method are less biased and more reliable (Muthen, Kaplan & Hollis, 1987). In addition, to evaluate the model fit, we used chi-square values, the comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and the standardized root mean residual (SRMR). A nonsignificant chi-square indicates a good model-data fit. The general cutoffs for accepting a model were equal to or greater than 0.90 for CFI and TLI, equal to or less than 0.08 for the RMSEA and SRMR (Wen, Hau & Marsh, 2004). To assess the bidirectional relationships between gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, the SEM approach was implemented in a cross-lagged model.
RESULTS Descriptive statistics and correlations Pearson correlations between the major variables were calculated (see Table 1), and there were significant positive correlations between gratitude at T1 and deliberate rumination at T2, PTG at T1 and T2. Gratitude at T2 was related positively to deliberate rumination at T1 and T2 as well as PTG at T1, T2 and T3. Gratitude at T3 was only related positively to PTG at T3 but not
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Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and correlations among study variables
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
T1 Gr T2 Gr T3 Gr T1 DR T2 DR T3 DR T1 PTG T2 PTG T3 PTG
M
SD
1
2
26.18 26.78 28.33 9.52 9.43 8.95 62.58 56.93 60.35
6.42 6.36 5.38 6.18 5.60 5.32 19.83 20.77 19.92
1.00 0.49*** 0.27** 0.11 0.20** 0.09 0.22** 0.25*** 0.13
1.00 0.37*** 0.15* 0.23** 0.10 0.17* 0.32*** 0.30***
3
1.00 0.01 0.03 0.11 0.10 0.03 0.41**
4
5
6
7
8
9
1.00 0.41** 0.42** 0.29*** 0.24*** 0.27***
1.00 0.53** 0.25*** 0.38*** 0.36***
1.00 0.26** 0.31*** 0.42***
1.00 0.38*** 0.37***
1.00 0.42***
1.00
Notes: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Gr = Gratitude, DR = Deliberate rumination.
to deliberate rumination at any time points or PTG at T1 and T2. Moreover, deliberate rumination at all the three time points was related positively to PTG, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Regarding that some confounding variables like gender and age may affect the correlations, we further examined the associations among the major variables after controlling age and gender. The results showed no significant change after the control. This indicated that variables such as gender and age had no virtual effects on the associations among the major variables.
BIDIRECTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS AMONG GRATITUDE, DELIBERATE RUMINATION AND PTG To examine the bidirectional relationships among gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, we established and examined the cross-lagged model as shown in Fig. 1. Figure 1 shows that the fit indices of cross-lagged model are good [v2(64) = 124.280, CFI = 0.962, TLI = 0.938, RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.066 (0.048– 0.083), SRMR = 0.041]. Path analyses revealed that gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG were associated with one another at T1 and T2. Gratitude at T3 was related to PTG but not to deliberate rumination at T3, and deliberate rumination at T3 was
also related to PTG at T3. In terms of the cross-lagged paths representing the influence of gratitude/deliberate rumination on PTG, gratitude at T1 significantly predicted PTG at T2, and gratitude at T2 significantly predicted PTG at T3; deliberate rumination at T1 did not predict significantly PTG at T2, but deliberate rumination at T2 significantly predicted PTG at T3. Moreover, gratitude at T1 significantly predicted PTG at T3 through deliberate rumination at T2, and the indirect path coefficient is 0.02 (0.11 9 0.17). Regarding the influence of PTG on gratitude/deliberate rumination, PTG at T1 significantly predicted deliberate rumination at T2 but did not predict gratitude at T2, and PTG at T2 did not significantly predict deliberate rumination or gratitude at T3. As for the influence of gratitude on deliberate rumination, gratitude at T1 significantly predicted deliberate rumination at T2, gratitude at T2 did not predict significantly deliberate rumination at T3.
DISCUSSION The present study conducted cross-lagged SEM to examine the temporal sequence of gratitude, deliberate rumination, and PTG in the adolescent survivors who have experienced the Wenchuan
Fig. 1. The cross-lagged model with bidirectional effects between gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG. Notes: Dashed lines indicate insignificant paths. Gr = Gratitude, DR = Deliberate rumination; Rectangle = observable variable, Ellipse = latent variable; PTG latent variable was evaluated using perceived changes in self, a changed sense of relationship with others, and a changed philosophy of life. © 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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earthquake. Consistent with the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2004), the results showed that gratitude at 3.5 and 4.5 years after earthquake predicted PTG at 4.5 and 5.5 years after the earthquake respectively, while from the reverse viewpoint, which indicated that gratitude is a predictive factor for PTG over time. Here, grateful response to received benefits can, over time, produce change in the quality of recipients’ perceived social relationship (Algoe, Haidt & Gable, 2008), and in turn adds the likelihood of positive experiences, even under the condition of chronic stress. As a matter of fact, as a positive emotion, gratitude is also one of human’s evolved adaptation mechanisms that can in the moment broaden individuals’ “thought-action” repertoire and build some enduring personal resources over time (Fredrickson, 2001), gratitude may also have long-term survival benefits by making people more open-minded and flexible, and ultimately they can see and take advantage of opportunities in the environment better (Johnson & Fredrickson, 2005). Another finding was that deliberate rumination at 4.5 years after earthquake predicted significantly PTG at 5.5 years after earthquake. This was consistent with previous studies (Cann, Calhoun, Tedeschi & Solomon, 2010; Taku, Calhoun, Cann & Tedeschi, 2008) and supported the PTG model of Calhoun and Tedeschi (2006). However, the result with an absence of the predictive effect of deliberate rumination on PTG between 3.5 years and 4.5 years is not consistent with previous studies, and this indicated an unstable relationship between deliberate rumination and PTG at different time after trauma as time changes. Replication and extension of the current findings will be important for increasing confidence in this inference. The results also suggested that there was a positive longitudinal effect of gratitude on PTG over and above continuity. Gratitude at 3.5 years predicted PTG at 5.5 years through deliberate rumination at 4.5 years. These results supported the broaden-andbuild theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2004). Adolescents who respond to the surroundings more gratefully are more likely to have positive thoughts and deliberate rumination on the traumatic experience and more likely to reconstruct positively the meaning of the world after trauma, and in turn realize their PTG. The mediating effect of deliberate rumination implies that besides the direct positive effect on PTG, gratitude also has an indirect positive effect on PTG by deliberate rumination. An interesting finding in this study was that PTG did not predict the sequent gratitude between 3.5 years and 5.5 years, but predicted deliberate rumination from 3.5 years to 4.5 years, which paralleled with the Janus-face model of PTG (Maercker & Zoellner, 2004). The constructed sides of PTG are conducive for individuals to construct the meanings of the world, and the increase in the likelihood of world recognition affects the development of deliberate rumination. However, this predictive relationship disappeared between 4.5 years and 5.5 years; a possible explanation lies in another destructive earthquake occurred in Lushan city, Sichuan on April 20, 2013, which may affect the adolescents negatively in Wenchuan which is near to Lushan. This earthquake led them to recollect the traumatic clues and experiences in the Wenchuan earthquake, and in turn result in negative cognition. For example, some adolescents said that “I’m unfortunate, why do earthquakes always occur in Sichuan,” “The © 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
world is unfair to us” and so on. Thus, although the adolescents have achieved PTG, they cannot deliberately ruminate on the related-traumatic clues because of these views on the world and self. Although most of the study’s theoretically derived predictions were supported, several limitations of the study should be noted. First, all variables were measured by self-report scales, thus associations between the main measures might be affected by common-method variance. Second, the absence of a specific measure assessing the level of exposure to the earthquake may limit the interpretation of the results. Then, the traumatic severity can be included in the future study. Third, except for gender and age, this study did not take other sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., socioeconomic status, parental education, etc.) into consideration. Thus the potential influence of other sociodemographic characteristics could not be excluded. More importantly, the Lushan earthquake may have an effect on the results, but the study did not exclude the potential effect of this earthquake. It will be helpful for future studies to assess whether the bidirectional relationships observed in this study persist after controlling this potential influence. Even with these limitations, to our knowledge, this study is among the first to examine the longitudinal relation of gratitude and deliberate rumination to PTG. Furthermore, it contributes new knowledge to previous theoretical and empirical studies on the temporal or causal relationship between gratitude, deliberate rumination and PTG, and has indicated that gratitude is an important and stable promoting factor for PTG and the relation of deliberate rumination to PTG is unstable between different time points. Moreover, this study also provides an important implication for the intervention and health-enhancement for adolescent survivors after the Wenchuan earthquake. School psychologists can conduct the gratitude-based intervention, for example, gratitude journal. The school psychologists may ask adolescents to indentify five things for which they are grateful each time they journal (Young & Hutchinson, 2012), for example, others’ smile to me, others’ help for us and so on. In addition, school psychologists can also guide students to positively think about the traumatic events and positive changes of the self. Through these ways, the adolescents may conceive more gratitude to others, which can be very helpful for them to reconstruct the meaning of post-traumatic world, and to furthermore realize PTG. This research was supported by the Key Projects of Humanities and Social Sciences Key Research Base, Ministry of Education, China (Grant No. 11JJD190006). We sincerely appreciate the students and teachers who devoted their time and interest by voluntarily participating in our research.
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