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Shattered cell phones, but not shattered lives: A comparison of reports of illusory posttraumatic growth on the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory and the Stress-Related Growth Scale-Revised.

OBJECTIVE: Existing measures of posttraumatic growth (PTG), such as the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), have been criticized on their ability to assess genuine PTG. Specifically, individuals tend to report illusory growth after a traumatic experience, when no true growth has taken place, as a coping mechanism. Recent evidence suggests a new measure, the Stress Related Growth Scale-Revised (SRGS-R), is less prone to reports of illusory PTG. The aim of the current study is to evaluate the extent to which participants report PTG on the PTGI and SRGS-R to an event that may be distressing, but incapable of resulting in genuine PTG-a cracked cell phone screen.

METHOD: Participants ( N = 613) who experienced a cracked cell phone screen were randomly assigned to complete either the SRGS-R or the PTGI, along with several measures of distress and coping.

RESULTS: The results revealed that participants who completed the PTGI reported significantly higher levels of PTG, than did participants who completed the SRGS-R. In addition, scores on the PTGI were significantly correlated with PTSD symptoms, distress, anxiety, depression, avoidance coping, and denial coping. In contrast, scores on the SRGS-R were not significantly related to any of the aforementioned measures.

CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide evidence that (a) existing measures of PTG can be contaminated with reports of illusory growth, and (b) the SRGS-R is less prone to such reports of illusory growth. The authors believe the SRGS-R is an important step forward in improving our ability to measure actual PTG. (PsycINFO Database Record

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