{"id":18618,"date":"2019-11-16T02:03:27","date_gmt":"2019-11-16T02:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=18618"},"modified":"2019-11-17T03:01:15","modified_gmt":"2019-11-17T03:01:15","slug":"do-we-actually-grow-from-adversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/do-we-actually-grow-from-adversity\/","title":{"rendered":"Do we actually grow from adversity?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eranda Jayawickreme<\/a>, Wake Forest University<\/a><\/em> and Frank J. Infurna<\/a>, Arizona State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

In our culture, there\u2019s this idea that enduring a tragedy can be good for your personal growth<\/a>. You\u2019ll have a newfound appreciation for life. You\u2019ll be grateful for your friends and family. You\u2019ll learn from the experience. You\u2019ll become more resilient.<\/p>\n

This theme<\/a> appears in media coverage, time<\/a> and again<\/a>, in the wake of natural disasters and terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n

But what does the science say?<\/p>\n

Is there actually value in pain and suffering? Was philosopher Frederich Nietzsche onto something when he said<\/a>, \u201cThat which does not kill us, makes us stronger\u201d?<\/p>\n

A powerful narrative<\/h2>\n

As psychologists, we\u2019ve been studying this question<\/a> for the better part of the last decade.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not the first to grapple with these questions. Psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun have written about<\/a> how, after experiencing loss or trauma, people reported feeling a greater appreciation for life, closer to their friends and family, stronger, more spiritual and more inspired. They dubbed this phenomenon \u201cpost-traumatic growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The appeal of this finding is obvious. It shows there\u2019s a silver lining to tragedy. It\u2019s also consistent with the biblical theme of redemption<\/a>, which says that all pain and suffering will ultimately lead to freedom.<\/p>\n

The findings also help us make sense of our own lives. Psychologists have demonstrated<\/a> that we like to narrate our lives in terms of the challenges we\u2019ve confronted and the setbacks we\u2019ve overcome. We like to believe good things can emerge from a bad turn of events because it\u2019s often a key element of the stories we tell about our own lives.<\/p>\n

How can you predict a traumatic event?<\/h2>\n

The cultural narrative of \u201cgrowth from adversity\u201d might sound compelling.<\/p>\n

But our own examination of the existing research on the topic identified some red flags.<\/p>\n

For one, it\u2019s difficult to collect data on people before and after they\u2019ve experienced trauma. For example, there\u2019s no way of knowing who\u2019s going to lose their home in a hurricane.<\/p>\n

For this reason, most research on post-traumatic growth has asked people to estimate how much they\u2019ve changed as a result of their trauma. While this might seem like a sensible way to assess personal growth \u2013 you might ask this question of a friend or even yourself \u2013 there are significant problems<\/a> with this approach.<\/p>\n

Studies<\/a> have<\/a> found<\/a> that people aren\u2019t very good at accurately remembering what they were like before a traumatic event. Or participants will say they\u2019ve grown from the event<\/a> when, in fact, they\u2019re still struggling<\/a>. Their reports of growth don\u2019t always match<\/a> what their friends and family think and may not reflect actual changes in their behaviors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Telling others that you\u2019ve grown might actually be a way to cope with the pain you\u2019re still experiencing. Western culture permits little time to grieve<\/a>; eventually, the expectation is that people are supposed to \u201cget over it and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
How much people believe they\u2019ve changed often isn\u2019t associated with how much they\u2019ve actually changed.<\/span>
\nfrankie’s\/Shutterstock.com<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That pressure may even be embedded in the test itself; the questions typically used by trauma researchers tend to ask only about positive changes \u2013 whether the person has a newfound appreciation for their life, has pursued new goals or has become more religious. An expectation of recovery and self-improvement is baked into this line of questioning. In other cases, people may simply report that they\u2019ve become stronger because they\u2019re in denial about the actual pain that they are experiencing.<\/p>\n

Yet the best-designed studies<\/a> examining growth have found that how much people believed they had changed following a traumatic experience was not associated with how much they actually changed over time.<\/p>\n

In fact, those who reported that they had experienced the most personal growth in the wake of a tragedy were more likely to be still experiencing<\/a> symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.<\/p>\n

The jury\u2019s still out<\/h2>\n

In many ways, it\u2019s problematic to embrace the idea that personal growth and resilience are typical outcomes of adversity.<\/p>\n

Think about what it communicates: Suffering is good in the long run, and people who have experienced trauma are stronger than those who haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n

But moving on from a tragedy isn\u2019t easy. Sometimes, the trauma of certain tragedies, such as the death of a child or a spouse, never fully goes away.<\/p>\n

And then there are those who are open about the fact that they\u2019re struggling after a loss months, even years later. If \u201cwhat doesn\u2019t kill you makes you stronger\u201d were true, these people might be viewed as \u201cweak,\u201d or seen as having something \u201cwrong\u201d with them.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what we do know from the best science that\u2019s been done: People can indeed grow from adversity. They can become stronger, improve the quality of their relationships and increase their self-esteem<\/a>. But it probably doesn\u2019t happen nearly as often as most people and some researchers believe.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, not everyone will grow in the same way and at the same speed. People will continue to need the help and social support of their families, friends and communities in the wake of a traumatic event. The availability of these resources actually play a big role<\/a> in determining whether people do, in fact, grow.<\/p>\n

Nor should growth be thought of as a goal for everyone. For many people, just getting back to where they were before the trauma may be an ambitious enough goal.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s certainly possible for adversity to lead to new insights and wisdom, science is still unclear about the \u201cwhen\u201d and \u201chow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stories of growth stemming from trauma are certainly powerful<\/a>. They can serve as inspiration for our own lives. But we need to do better research to know whether such stories are the norm or the exception.<\/p>\n

[ Insight, in your inbox each day.<\/em> You can get it with The Conversation\u2019s email newsletter<\/a>. ]\"The<\/p>\n

Eranda Jayawickreme<\/a>, Associate Professor of Psychology, Wake Forest University<\/a><\/em> and Frank J. Infurna<\/a>, Associate Professor of Psychology, Arizona State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eranda Jayawickreme, Wake Forest University and Frank J. Infurna, Arizona State University In our culture, there\u2019s this idea that enduring a tragedy can be good for your personal growth. You\u2019ll have a newfound appreciation for life. You\u2019ll be grateful for your friends and family. You\u2019ll learn from the experience. You\u2019ll become more resilient. This theme […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":18614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[7253,6341,3189,7252,3743,228,209,1872],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18618"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18618"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18620,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18618\/revisions\/18620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}