Role of factors facilitating post-traumatic growth of single mothers: A comparative study

In the Indian context, the irony of single mothers is that while on one hand, they have to cope with the trauma of losing their spouse, on the other hand, they suffer from significant socio-economic disadvantage and societal taboos. While social scientists have primarily been concerned with post-traumatic stress disorder and its effects, little effort has been made to study their post-traumatic growth. Recently, the trend in research has been to identify how individuals and families are able to bounce-back. There are multiple pathways and sources to resilience (King et al., 1998; Luthar et al., 2000; Masten, 2001; Friborg et al., 2003), and recent attempts in resiliency research are being purported in this direction to unravel the psychosocial sources of resilience. Researchers (e.g., Carver, 1998) have highlighted the need to study how variables such as optimism, coping skills, social support, and spirituality may be related to resilience and growth following traumatic events. It was therefore, considered worthwhile to examine the role of learned optimism, proactive coping, social support, resilience, and spirituality towards post-traumatic growth of widowed and divorced mothers. It was also postulated to examine the contribution of two socio-demographic viz., perceived stress and socio-economic status variables towards post-traumatic growth in the present investigation. The sample comprised 166 single mothers (83 widowed mothers and 83 divorced mothers) in the age group of 28 to 40 years. They were all post-graduate, working women belonging to middle to upper middle class urban families of Punjab. Reported time of spousal loss was two to four years. Demographic variables of perceived stress and socio-economic status were also taken. The following tools were administered: The Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory, Learned Optimism Scale, The Proactive Coping Inventory, Social Provisions Scale, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, The Expressions Of Spirituality Inventory-R, Perceived Stress Scale, and Socio-Economic Status Scale. Means, standard deviations and t-test were applied. As compared with divorced mothers, widows reported higher levels of post-traumatic growth (by and large), learned optimism, proactive coping, social support, and resilience. The two did not differ on perceived stress and spirituality, by and large. Thus, the findings reveal that such personal variables (e.g., proactive coping and resilience) can even undo the negative effects of stress, and promote growth post-trauma.