Keywords
optimism
well-being
posttraumatic growth
earthquake.
How to Cite
Abstract
The aim of the study was to evaluate, in a population affected by a natural disaster, the relationship of social and psychological variables with the psychological well-being and posttraumatic growth. Participated 446 people of the province of Concepcion, Chile, affected by the earthquake on 27/F, 2010. We used the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), the Life Orientation Test (LOT-R) and the Flourishing Scale. We analyzed the relationship between objective severity of the event (material loss, physical damage to someone close and personal physical damage), subjective severity of the event (considering the event as traumatic or altered their lives) and dispositional optimism, showing that the interaction of optimism with subjective or objective severity contributes significantly to the prediction of well-being and growth, moderating the impact of these variables. In addition, we evaluated differences by sex, age and socioeconomic status. There was a relative influence of socioeconomic status on posttraumatic growth. This study shows the relevance of social conditions on the psychological effects of natural disasters and the importance of optimism to mitigate these effectsThis journal is registered under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License. Thus, this work may be reproduced, distributed, and publicly shared in digital format, as long as the names of the authors and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana are acknowledged. Others are allowed to quote, adapt, transform, auto-archive, republish, and create based on this material, for any purpose (even commercial ones), provided the authorship is duly acknowledged, a link to the original work is provided, and it is specified if changes have been made. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana does not hold the rights of published works and the authors are solely responsible for the contents of their works; they keep the moral, intellectual, privacy, and publicity rights. Approving the intervention of the work (review, copy-editing, translation, layout) and the following outreach, are granted through an use license and not through an assignment of rights. This means the journal and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana cannot be held responsible for any ethical malpractice by the authors. As a consequence of the protection granted by the use license, the journal is not required to publish recantations or modify information already published, unless the errata stems from the editorial management process. Publishing contents in this journal does not generate royalties for contributors.