Stress-related growth and thriving through coping: the roles of personality and cognitive processes - Thriving: Broadening the Paradigm Beyond Illness to Health

Journal of Social Issues, Summer, 1998 by Crystal L. Park

Until quite recently, literature on stress and coping focused almost exclusively on the negative sequelae of stressful encounters. A recent trend in this literature, however, is the inclusion of reports of positive outcomes or growth resulting from coping efforts. Anecdotal accounts indicate that people report that they are "thriving" as a result of coping with stress, or they report that they experienced positive outcomes and "grew" through their coping experience. In fact, some people who have experienced life-threatening illnesses and other traumatic experiences report their stressor as very positive, or even "the best thing that ever happened to me" (O'Leary, Alday, & Ickovics, 1998). More rigorous empirical research, though sparse, has also shown that many people experience stress-related growth and thrive in many ways following extremely stressful situations such as bereavement (Calhoun & Tedeschi, 1989-90), cancer (Taylor, 1983), myocardial infarction (Affleck, Tennen, Croog, & Levine, 1987), political imprisonment (Maerker & Schutzwohl, 1997), and shipwreck (Joseph, Williams, & Yule, 1993).

Of course, not all people report experiencing such growth. Further, and importantly, people's reports of positive changes or areas in which they are thriving do not mean that they have not suffered, nor that they are thriving in all domains of their lives. On the other hand, many studies have reported convincing evidence that many people do thrive in important ways and do experience genuine growth following stressful experiences. The challenge for this new development in stress and coping research is to determine why some people thrive or experience a great deal of personal growth following stressful encounters, whereas others experience some growth and others none.

Characteristics of people themselves - including their personalities, their resources, their beliefs, and their resultant cognitions and behaviors throughout the coping process - are believed by many researchers to be among the strongest determinants of how individuals fare in terms of both their psychological and physical health when faced with stressful experiences. These characteristics, along with situational factors, may also determine the extent to which people thrive or experience growth through responding to and coping with stressful and traumatic experiences (Carver, this issue).

This article describes the theoretical perspectives and the available empirical research relating personal dispositions and resources as well as appraisals and coping (cognitive and behavioral processes) to stress-related growth and thriving within a transactional stress and coping framework. Following a description of this framework, the personal characteristics relevant to thriving and growth are reviewed. It is noted, in this section, that personal characteristics may exert effects directly on positive outcomes such as thriving and growth, and that the effects of these personal characteristics may also be mediated by various appraisal and coping processes. The next section reviews theoretical and empirical work on appraisal and coping processes as predictors of growth and thriving. Then, work on comprehensive models of stress-related growth and thriving that include personal resources and coping processes is discussed; such models consider appraisal and coping processes as potential mechanisms through which personal characteristics may operate indirectly to affect stress-related growth and thriving. Finally, some implications of these relationships for individuals and for communities are suggested.

Because of the recency of this conceptual development, studies focused on the potential positive outcomes of stressful experiences have used different terminologies to describe these phenomena, and a standard lexicon has not yet developed (Carver, this issue). In this article, growth refers to any number of positive changes a person reports experiencing following stressful experiences. As various authors have described, these can be positive changes in relationships, coping skills, or life philosophies, values, and goals (e.g., Schaefer & Moos, 1992). Thriving, on the other hand, refers to a higher level of functioning in some life domain following a stressful encounter. The positive changes reflected in reports of stress-related growth likely lead to thriving, but the empirical links have not yet been established. To date, most of the empirical research in the area of positive changes following stressful life events has focused on stress-related growth.

Transactional Model

The study of coping with trauma and other stressful experiences focuses on people's responses to these trying circumstances, in terms of their attempts to both alleviate their distress and to solve or resolve the problematic conditions that tax or exceed their resources (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Transactional models of coping focus on the interaction of characteristics of the person and the stressor, and emphasize the importance of the meaning of the stressor. Essentially, these theories posit that people's interpretations of an event determine how they respond in terms of their emotional reactions and their coping efforts. In turn, people's interpretations depend on their personal and social resources as well as characteristics of the stressful experiences. Thus, transactional models posit that the outcomes of stressful encounters are determined by many elements, including, among others, personality, world views, social support, socioeconomic status, preexisting physical and psychological adjustment, and previous experience.