Examining the functional utility of personal growth initiative in a war-affected Sri Lankan Tamil sample.

Abstract

Perara at the Family Rehabilitation Center in Sri Lanka for facilitating data collection. This publication was made possible through the support of grant #24322 from the John Templeton Foundation awarded to Eranda Jayawickreme. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.

Examining associations between personal growth initiative and subjective trajectories of life satisfaction among survivors of ethnopolitical violence in Rwanda and Sri Lanka

“…These findings are consistent with previous studies that have linked PGI to higher life satisfaction in non-Western samples (e.g. Blackie et al, 2015;Chang et al, 2019;Demaske et al, 2021;Sood & Gupta, 2014) and add to the literature demonstrating PGI's cross-cultural validity as a psychological construct (e.g. Ayub & Iqbal, 2012;Joshanloo & Ghaedi, 2009).…”

“…This limits the generalizability of these results to the larger population in war-affected Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka, as these participants may have higher mean levels of PGI (motivating them to attend the clinics) and also have greater material and interpersonal resources that enabled them to attend. Finally, despite prior research highlighting the validity of PGI in the Sri Lankan (Blackie et al, 2015) and Rwandan (Demaske et al, 2021) contexts, we utilized measures that had not originally been developed for use in these specific cultural contexts. Future research may identify culture-specific idioms of PGI for use in local assessments of the construct.…”

Advancing a Three-Tier Personality Framework for Posttraumatic Growth

“…In one area of the literature, this desire has been conceptualized as “personal growth initiative,” which encompasses both an individual’s desire to grow as a person and self-regulatory strategies for realizing such growth (Robitschek, 1998). In a genocide-affected Rwandan community, personal growth initiative was cross-sectionally associated with less functional impairment (Blackie et al, 2015), and higher well-being among Tamil survivors of the Sri Lankan civil war (Demaske et al, 2021). Rounding out our understanding of the motivational basis for growth, the three-part model of volitional personality change (Hennecke et al, 2014) further specifies that in addition to the desire to change and strategies for change, individuals must also see change as feasible and act on it (Hudson et al, 2019; Stieger et al, 2021).…”

Introduction to special issue on promoting health and well-being in forcibly displaced asian populations.

“…Meyerhoff et al (2021) also identify factors that protect Lhotshampa Bhutanese refugees in the United States against suicide—these include low levels of substance use, destigmatization of mental health concerns, strong social connections, reduced postmigration stressors, increased access to mental health care, and better awareness of migration-related challenges among those providing services to their community. Demaske et al (2021) examine a particular aspect of resilience, personal growth initiative (PGI)—the tendency to deliberately engage in actions that are valued—in internally displaced war-affected Sri Lankans, and find that after controlling for depression, wartime experiences, and demographic factors, PGI is positively associated with life satisfaction (but interestingly not functional impairment, as has been found in other war-affected populations).…”

“…Reflecting the current humanitarian crisis in Myanmar, half of the papers in this collection focus on refugees from that country: the Chin living in Malaysia (Cowling & Anderson, 2021; Gosnell et al, 2021), the Karen and Burman living in Thailand (Haroz et al, 2021), and the Rohingyas living in Bangladesh (Mozumder & Islam, 2021). Other papers in this collection focus on Lhotshampa Bhutanese refugees living in the United States (Meyerhoff et al, 2021) and on Sri Lankan populations both internally displaced due to war and tsunami (Demaske et al, 2021; Wessells & Kostelny, 2021) and living abroad as refugees (in Canada; Pandalangat & Kanagaratnam, 2021).…”