Second year undergraduate lab member, Alex, recently presented an outline for a manuscript that he, Velinka, and Dr. Taku are writing. This is Alex’s second manuscript. He is principal investigator of an ongoing study titled, Survey About Images of Psychosomatic Disorder or Posttraumatic Growth.He began the presentation by providing an overview of a previous manuscript that was focused on individual differences in attitudes and perceptions towards posttraumatic growth (PTG) and illusory growth. Findings from that part of the study showed that, overall, participants can distinguish between the two different growth types: PTG and illusory growth. They also tend to relate more to narratives reflecting PTG rather than illusory growth. The second manuscript addresses how relatability to a trauma narrative may affect PTG. Specifically, it addressed whether being able to relate to the type of trauma would elucidate a stronger relationship between relatability and self-reported PTG. Alex suggests that the results will provide great insight for social support groups and intervention where the focus is on sharing stories and traumatic events with groups to foster personal growth. Moving forward, Alex plans to further decipher which aspects of the stories are most relatable and potentially try to replicate the study using different trauma narratives. Future studies will then clarify whether relatability to different traumatic events brings about different self-reports of PTG. Great job, Alex, and good luck with future research!
FF-PTG LAB 