Factors Promoting Resilience, Posttraumatic Growth, and Altruism After Victimization | Summaries Health sciences

Altruism Born of Suffering: The Roots of Caring and Helping After Victimization and Other

Trauma – Vollhardt

Abstract:

- Research on altruism has focused on its positive roots

- Research on the effects of victimization and suffering has focused on aggression and

difficulties in functioning

- Research also indicates that victimization and suffering can also lead people to care about

and help others

- The relation of altruism born of suffering to resilience and posttraumatic growth

oPotentially facilitating influences on altruism born of suffering during, after, and

preceding victimization and trauma

Includes experiences that promote healing, understanding what led harm

doers to their actions, caring by others

- Suggest that psychological changes that may result from these influences

oStrengthening of the self, a more positive orientation toward people, empathy, and

belief in one’s personal responsibility for others welfare

Introduction:

- Experiencing violence often shakes the very foundation of a person’s beliefs and can

create a sense of living in a meaningless and threatening world

- Many individuals feeling vulnerable and seeing other people as dangerous, become

hostile and aggressive

- Others show difficulties functioning, or mental health problems

- Some who have suffered from violence reclaim meaning and turn toward others,

becoming caring and helpful,

oThis phenomenon has been referred to as altruism born of suffering

- Past 40 years most of the research on altruism and helping behaviour has focused almost

exclusively on the positive roots of prosocial feelings, values and actions

oHow loving, supportive environment and positive guidance can lead to personal

characteristics and psychological processes that give rise to helping

- Research on trauma and victimization has focused on the enduring negative

consequences of such experiences

- Studies with victims of violence showed that these experiences often give rise to violent

behaviour, withdrawal and social maladjustment

- In reality only a small percent of those who have traumatic experiences develop PTSD

- Theory has come to focus on PTG posttraumatic growth and reliance after trauma

- Survivor mission

oDeep commitment by victims to prevent future suffering

- Some people who have suffered do act in caring, loving, altruistic ways

oThey want to help others because of the suffering they have endured

- Some suffering is simply part of life

oLike grief from someone’s death

- Other suffering is the result of human agency but without intentional harm done

- Suffering as the result of intentional human acts like rape or assault

- Intentional victimization is likely to create psychological wounds and transformations

that turn people away from and at times against each other

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Altruism Born of Suffering: The Roots of Caring and Helping After Victimization and Other Trauma – Vollhardt Abstract:

Research on altruism has focused on its positive roots
Research on the effects of victimization and suffering has focused on aggression and difficulties in functioning
Research also indicates that victimization and suffering can also lead people to care about and help others
The relation of altruism born of suffering to resilience and posttraumatic growth o Potentially facilitating influences on altruism born of suffering during, after, and preceding victimization and trauma  Includes experiences that promote healing, understanding what led harm doers to their actions, caring by others
Suggest that psychological changes that may result from these influences o Strengthening of the self, a more positive orientation toward people, empathy, and belief in one’s personal responsibility for others welfare Introduction:
Experiencing violence often shakes the very foundation of a person’s beliefs and can create a sense of living in a meaningless and threatening world
Many individuals feeling vulnerable and seeing other people as dangerous, become hostile and aggressive
Others show difficulties functioning, or mental health problems
Some who have suffered from violence reclaim meaning and turn toward others, becoming caring and helpful, o This phenomenon has been referred to as altruism born of suffering
Past 40 years most of the research on altruism and helping behaviour has focused almost exclusively on the positive roots of prosocial feelings, values and actions o How loving, supportive environment and positive guidance can lead to personal characteristics and psychological processes that give rise to helping
Research on trauma and victimization has focused on the enduring negative consequences of such experiences
Studies with victims of violence showed that these experiences often give rise to violent behaviour, withdrawal and social maladjustment
In reality only a small percent of those who have traumatic experiences develop PTSD
Theory has come to focus on PTG posttraumatic growth and reliance after trauma
Survivor mission o Deep commitment by victims to prevent future suffering
Some people who have suffered do act in caring, loving, altruistic ways o They want to help others because of the suffering they have endured
Some suffering is simply part of life o Like grief from someone’s death
Other suffering is the result of human agency but without intentional harm done
Suffering as the result of intentional human acts like rape or assault
Intentional victimization is likely to create psychological wounds and transformations that turn people away from and at times against each other

The psychological processes that give rise to altruism tend to make aggression less likely
Trauma can be transformed not only into personal assets but into a community asset
Reduce violence between individuals and group while enhancing caring, helping others in need, and harmonious relations
Experiences and processes that we expect to promote ABS o Experiences that promote a positive cognitive and emotional orientation to self and others  Healing after suffering o The supportive and guiding influences of the others o The individuals own actions  Taking action in one’s own or others behalf in the face of victimization o Psychological processes that presumably arise from the experiences and give rise to ABS  Increases awareness of suffering, empathy, perceived similarity and identification with other victims The Negative Impact of Family and Political Violence
Research on the negative impacts of trauma o PTSD, a defensive, fearful stance toward the world and negative view of the self as helpless and unworthy
In human induced trauma an overriding feeling of betrayal, a sense of abandonment and a view of people as malevolent and the world as dangerous place
Need for defence
Can motivate revenge
Victimization can fuel violence o Most school shooters in the US were bullied by peers
The experience of violence can make people react more readily to perceived threat
Past victimization appears to be one of the influences that contribute to the evolution of mass violence Resilience:
Some people who have adverse and traumatic experiences exhibit positive adaptation within the context of significant adversity o Resilience
Numerous protective factors that interact with risk factors to buffer their effect and enable the development of behaviorally manifested social competence
Resilience, altruism and prosocial behaviour are also listed among the proposed characteristics of resilient, socially competent individuals
Three categories of variables have been identified as protective factors contributing to resilience o Individual characteristics  high self esteem  internal locos of control  self-efficacy  social expressiveness  easy going temperament  humour  high problem solving skills

ABS overlaps with resilience and PTG it is an important concept on its own
It is distinctive with regard to at least three foci: o Its focus on victimization – intentional harm doing o On the prevention of violence o On the generation of positive psychological changes that lead to helpful action
Certain social experiences as a source of ABS o May also be important to promote PTG
Focus is on experiences after, during and to some degree before suffering that foster the psychological orientations that give rise to altruism under appropriate elicitating conditions
Two types of changes o First:  People who have been victimized must come to see other human beings in a positive light  What happens to them matters  Experience the self as strong enough so that attention and care can shift from the self to others in need and feel empowered to act on others behalf o Second:  Increased perspective-taking and empathy  Increase in prosocial value orientation
Need to distinguish between pre-existing altruism and altruism that arises after suffering
Nurturing and positive human connection and contribute to initial development of altruism
Pre-existing altruism can be renewed or recreated as a result of the experiences to victimization Empirical Support for ABS:
ABS is difficult to conduct research on because suffering cannot be experimentally imposed to study its effects
Difficult to plan longitudinal studies comparing behaviour before and after suffering because suffering cannot be easily predicted
One group of studies reviewed demonstrates helping behaviour at the time of and in response to adverse conditions o Both natural and human caused suffering
Research on learning by doing demonstrates that people who have helped other under situational influences are more likely to help
Human caused suffering o Holocaust survivors reported that helping was a prevalent, potent, and essential aspect of the experience of survivors  One which emerged as a necessary condition of their survival
Natural disasters and nonhuman suffering o Increased compassion was a frequent growth outcome o Emergence of an altruistic community in the aftermath of hurricanes, floods or earthquakes Altruism and Prosocial Behaviour in the Aftermath of Victimization:

Students who reported that they had suffered from interpersonal violence reported significantly more feelings of empathy for victims of other violent events o Also they volunteered more
Average helping by those who suffered in varied ways was greater than by those who have not suffered suggest that ABS may be more common than would be expected on the basis of the literatures on victimization and its effects
More prosocial behaviour in everyday life reported by those who experienced violence then those who have not
Lebanese students 10-16 who had been directly affected by violence scored higher on a self-report measure of prosocial behaviour
Survivors of a terrorist attack reported that their life after the attack helping others who feel pain like them made their lives feel more meaningful and helped with survivor guilt
Survivors of 9/11 reported donating and volunteering more than those who suffered less
These findings are correlated and we cannot exclude the possibility that they are expressions of personal characteristics like greater sensitivity to stressful events and greater dispositional empathy rather than suffering leading to more caring Experiences Promoting ABS:
The greater the number and extensiveness of positive experiences before, at the time of, and in the aftermath of victimization the more likely it is that ABS develops
Psychological changes include change from vulnerability, mistrust, and the perception of others as dangerous to a stronger sense of self and seeing the world and other human beings in a more positive way
Traumatized people differ in the extent to which they have had experienced that fosters psychological recovery after the trauma o Some people may develop such an intensely defensive stance against a hostile world that they cannot recognize or use opportunities that might result in cognitive and emotional changes and are potentially healing Healing or Psychological Recovery After Intense Suffering:
Experiences that can promote healing are therapy, writing, finding social support and significant human connections, learning about the causes and consequences of violence
Engaging with memories of painful past experiences rather than avoiding them and finding or creating meaning in the course of them o Important aspects of healing o Come to believe that they themselves shouldn’t be victimized and other people shouldn’t either
Healing from trauma fosters the fulfillment of basic psychological needs that have been frustrated during periods of suffering
As basic needs are fulfilled the need for transcendence o The need to focus beyond oneself emerges
Understanding the influences that have led perpetrators to their actions can promote healing o Contributes to meaning making
Understanding what led perpetrators to their actions provides comprehension and meaning o Creates empowerment, reinstates a person’s feeling of humanity Supportive and Guiding Influences of Others:

Factors Promoting Resilience, Posttraumatic Growth, and Altruism After Victimization, Summaries of Health sciences

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