From Rumination to Generativity: The Mediation Effect of Posttraumatic Growth

Abstract

The paper presents two studies dealing with the preliminary exploration of the mediation effects of posttraumatic growth on associations of event-related rumination and generativity in adults. A secondary aim is to explore the psychometric properties of the Georgian version of the Event-Related Rumination Inventory. Three hundred sixty-four individuals participated in two studies. The results indicate that the Georgian version of the Event-Related Rumination Inventory has good internal consistency, and the two-factor structure replicated the factor structure reported in the original study. There were also some between-person differences for gender. Further, the association between rumination and generativity was mediated by posttraumatic growth.

Keywords:

• intrusive and deliberate rumination
• factor structure
• posttraumatic growth
• generativity

Acknowledgments

I want to express my sincere gratitude to my colleague and research assistant, George Tchumburidze, MA, who did almost all the fieldwork, cleaned the data, and created a perfect database file. Also, my huge thank-you goes to my former graduate students and dear friends Mariam Gogichaishvili, MA, and Tamari Jananashvili, MA, for their critical comments on the early draft of the paper, and my endless gratitude and thank-you to my dear colleague and friend Prof. Kate McLean for her thorough revision of the text, with comments and notes leading me to new insights.

Additional information

Funding

This study was accomplished in frame and with financial support of Shota Rustaveli National Foundation (Georgia), Young Scientists’ Research Grant (“Self and Society: Personal and Master Narratives, and Social Adaptation,” Grant ID: YS-2016-8).

Notes on contributors

Lili Khechuashvili

Lili Khechuashvili earned her PhD in psychology in 2009 and has been a faculty member at Tbilisi State University since 2005. She teaches courses in undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate personality psychology, narrative research, and statistics. Her current professional and research interests consist of narrative identity, transformative experiences and their positive consequences, posttraumatic growth, and psychological well-being. She currently runs two research projects: “Master Narrative of Modern Georgians: Comparative Study of Georgian Immigrants and Those Living in the Country,” and “Self and Society: Personal and Master Narratives and Social Adaptation.”