Kayla Benson, second year PhD student, recently gave a presentation in preparation for her thesis defense. The purposes of Benson’s study, “Growing Toward the Common Good: Collective Action Engagement as Evidence for Posttraumatic Growth”, include understanding the collective action behaviors as an indication of action focused growth and constructive posttraumatic growth [PTG] and the relationships between community identity and collective action. The study will also strive to evaluate narcissism and optimism as potential components restricting constructive PTG.
Benson hypothesizes (1) people who are high in PTG will engage in more collective action interventions overall; (2) When individuals believe that their identities are strongly connected to the community, they will engage in more collective action behaviors; and (3) individuals who display patterns of illusory growth (high PTG, low in collective action) will be higher in narcissism and/or optimism.A total of 168 participants ranging from the ages of 18 to 47 years old (M=20.07, SD=3.25) participated in the study. The items that were measured in the online survey were posttraumatic growth, narcissism, optimism, altruism, social identity, and COVID-19 collective action.
Within the preliminary data analysis, hypothesis 1 of people who are high in PTG will engage in more collective action interventions overall was not supported. Participants scored high across the board in collective action behaviors during the pandemic. Hypothesis 2, when individuals believe that their identities are strongly connected to the community, they will engage in more collective action behaviors, was not supported. A slight negative relationship was present. Also, Hypothesis 3, individuals who display patterns of illusory growth (high PTG, low in collective action) will be higher in narcissism and/or optimism, was not supported, since there were no difference between the groups.
Currently, the recognized limitations of the study includes data collection started over 1.5 years after the start of the pandemic; local and state mask mandates changed throughout the course of data collection; measure for pandemic behaviors are limited; only college participants so far, who are more likely to follow guidelines compared to other populations.
What are the next steps? Benson is planning are continuing analysis to understand the relationships with the individual domains of PTG along with explaining the relationships between SEC with narcissism and optimism. She will also find potential controls, since many of the predicted relationships are virtually non-existent or trending in the opposite direction. Finally, Benson will continue data analysis to discovered other potential connections between the data measures and its variables.
Great work so far, Kayla! We are looking forward to your discoveries.
FF-PTG LAB 