“I Gain a Resilient Self”: Exploring Disaster Identity Communication and Posttraumatic Growth of Young Adults in Chinese Culture

ABSTRACT

Natural disasters can have both negative and positive impacts on survivors’ mental health, including posttraumatic growth (PTG). This study applies the Communication Theory of Identity (CTI), which posits that identity is a multi-layered construct shaped through and reflected in communication, to explore PTG through identity lenses among young adults (aged 21–30 years, 9 females and 6 males) in the aftermath of a devastating urban flood within Chinese culture. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted to understand the relationship between their identities and PTG. A deductive qualitative content analysis was employed to analyze data. Participants described their specific self change within four identity frames: personal, relational, enacted, and communal. Within each frame, several sub-categories of disaster-related identity changes are identified. Furthermore, two identity gaps were identified during the disaster: personal-enacted and personal-relational, which reflect the discrepancies among identity frames. The findings indicate that young adults can experience PTG while communicating their specific identities, but identity gaps hinder this process. The study suggests that Confucianism in Chinese culture may play a supportive role in facilitating PTG during the disaster.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity
• communication
• disaster
• posttraumatic growth
• culture

Acknowledgments

I deeply respect the courageous and united people of Zhengzhou during this unprecedented natural disaster. Special thanks go to the fifteen young survivors who graciously agreed to be interviewed. I am profoundly grateful to Dr. Michelle I. Seelig, Dr. Kallia Wright, and Dr. Queenie Jo-Yun Li for their invaluable comments on the revision of this article. Additionally, I would like to express my appreciation to the anonymous reviewers and Dr. Parul Jain for their insightful feedback, which significantly enhanced the quality of this work.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zixiao Yang

Zixiao Yang (M.A., University of Miami) is a Ph.D. Candidate and research assistant in the School of Communication at the University of Miami. His research interests are health communication and mental health, coping strategies and individual resilience, and interpersonal communication. His research has been published in the Journal of Gambling Studies, Critical Studies in Media Communication, and presented at several international conferences, such as the National Communication Association Conference (NCA), the Annual International Communication Association Conference (ICA), the DC Health Communication Conference, and the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) Pre-conference. He is also an instructor and teaches an introductory statistics course and multiple health communication theory courses in the Department of Communication Studies.