Citation

Vaughn AA, Roesch SC, Aldridge AA. Educ. Psychol. Meas. 2009; 69(1): 131-145.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0013164408318775

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Stress-related growth is defined as the perception or experience of deriving benefits from encountering stressful circumstances and, thus, has been identified as a protective factor against stress. The current study revised and subsequently validated scores on an existing measure of stress-related growth in a sample of racial/ethnic minority adolescents (n = 388). The multidimensional representation of the Stress-Related Growth Scale was composed of three factors: (a) Cognitive/Affective Growth, (b) Religious Growth, and (c) Social Growth. Interestingly, Religious Growth was relatively distinct from the other two growth factors. Cognitive/Affective and Social Growth factors were associated with other measures of positive psychology constructs (hope), negative mental health (depressive symptoms), and coping strategies (e.g., positive reinterpretation). The magnitude of these relations, however, suggests that these two types of growth are convergent yet discernable from these other measures. Religious growth was statistically significantly associated with use of religious coping and independent from other validity measures of positive psychology and coping. Sufficient variation was displayed for each growth factor, suggesting that these factors can be incorporated into stress and coping paradigms as potential individual difference or outcome variables.