Assessment and Prediction of Stress‐Related Growth

TLDR

The study develops a Stress‑Related Growth Scale (SRGS) and applies it to examine determinants of stress‑related positive outcomes among college students. The authors created the SRGS, administered it to college students, and conducted reliability, validity, and longitudinal predictor analyses across three studies. The SRGS demonstrated acceptable reliability, was unaffected by social desirability, correlated with peer‑rated scores, and was predicted by intrinsic religiousness, social support satisfaction, event stressfulness, coping, and positive life events, while also predicting increases in optimism, positive affect, and social support.

Abstract

This article reports the development of the Stress-Related Growth Scale (SRGS) and its use in a study examining determinants of stress-related positive outcomes for college students. Study 1 analyses showed that the SRGS has acceptable internal and test-retest reliability and that scores are not influenced by social desirability. Study 2 analyses showed that college students' SRGS responses were significantly related to those provided by friends and relatives on their behalf. Study 3 analyses tested the determinants of stress-related growth longitudinally. Significant predictors of the SRGS were (a) intrinsic religiousness; (b) social support satisfaction; (c) stressfulness of the negative event; (d) positive reinterpretation and acceptance coping; and (e) number of recent positive life events. The SRGS was also positively related to residual change in optimism, positive affectivity, number of socially supportive others, and social support satisfaction, lending further support to the validity of this new scale. Results have implications for current theory on stress-related positive outcomes.