The concept of gratitude and its relationship with posttraumatic growth: Roles of early maladaptive schemata and schema coping styles, locus of control and responsibility

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi, Psikoloji Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2016

Öğrenci: MERVE TOPCU

Danışman: FARUK GENÇÖZ

Özet:

Individuals experience diverse life events throughout life. It is known that events attributed both as good and bad yield stress. However since individuals manifest a tendency to self-actualize, in the face of stress they have a room for psychological growth as well. It was suggested that individuals who had gone through adverse life events are able to find a way to transition which alters “a stumbling block” to “a building block”. In the transition, it was suggested that feeling of gratitude and schema operations are essential since they operates in cognitive processing. However cultural differences especially for gratitude have been reported. Therefore, four studies relied on qualitative and quantitative methodology were conducted to understand gratitude, namely, minnet, şükran, and şükür and its relationship with posttraumatic growth by focusing on early maladaptive schemata and schema coping styles, locus of control and responsibility while controlling the effect of gender, age, positive and negative affect, social desirability and religiosity. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated. Series of two-stepped hierarchical analyses were run. Emotional deprivation, insufficient control / self-disipline and counter dependency, behavioral dimension of responsibility and belief in fate were the unique predictors of gratitude. Gratitude did not predict posttraumatic growth.