The Relationship Among Perceived Chronic Social Adversity,Individulized Negative Essentialism And Traumatic Symptoms

When talking about things which can destroy one's spirit defense in a short time,it is often traumatic events that are directly life threating or health damaging,such as physical abuse,sexual assault,natural disasters and accidents.These events often make individuals feel overwhelming stress,which may in consequence cause a series of core traumatic symptoms,including intrusion,avoidance,negative alterations in cognitions and mood,and alterations in arousal and reactivity.But at the same time,stressful events that occur more frequently and more commonly in our daily lives can also cause overwhelming stress,especially in case they happen continuously and accumulatively.Because the occurrence of traumatic events is at present a prerequisite for diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder(PTSD),the researches on traumatic symptoms and the development mechanism of PTSD are often limited to individuals who have experienced traumatic events.However,we believe that non-traumatic events may also trigger traumatic symptoms based on clinical practice,personal construct theory,stress response related theory and evidence from existing behavioral and neuroscience studies.Based on the literature review of studies on traumatic and stressful events,we proposed the concept of perceived chronic social adversity,emphasizing on measuring the superposition of stressful events in daily social life from the perspective of individual perception.From the perspectives of evolutionary psychology and existentialism,our research focuses on three major kinds of social adversities: obvious or obscure social exclusion,being overly controlled and weakness in social competition.Through the development of perceived chronic social adversity questionnaire(PCSAQ),we can systematically examine the relationship between the accumulation of daily social stressful events and traumatic reactions.Categorization is a necessary means for our learning,survival and adaptation.However,unfavorable category representations can cause individual mental health problems.Stress can facilitate automatic gross categorization,driving individuals more likely to focus on typical category information,making individuals more likely to perceive similarities between stimuli and category prototypes while ignoring their difference.As a result,individuals who have perceived chronic social adversities are more likely to view past negative experiences as a reflection of individual categories' essence,thereby expanding the effects of negative experience from time and space dimensions.Under the framework of categorization and psychological essentialism,we proposed the concept of individualized negative essentialism and developed a corresponding questionnaire focusing on the essentialist processing tendency in categorizing individual experiences.We expect that individualized negative essentialism plays a mediating role between perceived chronic social adversity and traumatic symptoms.From the perspective of positive psychology,this study also dived into the possibility that individuals who perceived chronic social adversity developed adaptive results.This allows us to look at the impact of perceived chronic social adversity from a more dialectical perspective.We included two variables in the model to examine how perceived chronic social adversity makes influence on mental health in more detail.One is sense of control,given the important role it plays in stress coping and the development of mental health.Another is negative memory immergence,considering its theoretical importance in the generation of individualized negative essentialism.In summary,this study aimed to investigate the relationship between perceived chronic social adversity and traumatic symptoms,and the core variables that may play a role in this relationship.We expect our study can help researchers and therapists get a better understanding of the cause and the process of traumatic symptoms development from the theoretical level,and provide guidance for alleviating traumatic symptoms and facilitating adaptive outcomes.The purpose of Study 1 and Study 2 was to develop and validate the PCSAQ,and to preliminarily examine the relationship between perceived chronic social adversity and traumatic symptoms.In Study 1,we collected two non-clinical samples including undergraduates,vocational college students,soldiers,and adults from the community.Sample 1 includes 331 people and sample 2 includes 390 people.Following the commonly used procedure for instrument development,we developed the PCSAQ that includes 28 items,and obtained reliability and validity test results.Both exploratory factor analysis(EFA)and confirmatory factor analysis(CFA)supported a three-factor structure: social exclusion,being over-controlled and weakness in social competition.Both the overall PCSAQ and its three subscales had good internal consistency reliability and acceptable test-retest reliability.When using age as control variable,we found that vocational college students and adults from the community(living in relatively complex and negative living environments)had significantly higher score on PCSAQ than undergraduates and soldiers.This suggested the PCSAQ had a good construct validity.The overall PCSAQ and its three dimensions correlated significantly with sense of control,happiness,and anxiety and depression symptoms,indicating that the PCSAQ has good concurrent validity.Based on the validation of the PCSAQ,we found that the overall PCSAQ and its three dimensions significantly related to traumatic symptoms.In Study 2,a clinical sample of 86 people was used to verify that the PCSAQ also had good internal consistency reliability and concurrent validity in clinical samples.In addition,Study 2 found through hierarchical regression analyses that perceived chronic social adversity can still predict traumatic symptoms under controlling the effects of traumatic events and sense of control.The purpose of study 3 and study 4 was to develop and validate the Individualized Negative Essentialism Questionnaire(INEQ).In Study 3,the item property fitting analysis was firstly adopted to analyze the expert evaluation results and a preliminary version of the INEQ was developed accordingly.Then we collected a sample including 963 subjects and randomly divided it into two subsamples respectively for EFA and CFA.The results supported the 20-item INEQ had a good three-factor structure: negative inference about self,fixedness,and negative inference about others.Both the overall INEQ and its three dimensions had good internal consistency reliability.In study 4,a sample of 276 subjects was used to test the construct validity,discriminant validity and concurrent validity of the INEQ and a sample of 88 subjects was used to test the test-retest reliability of the INEQ.Construct validity was shown by significant differences between a clinical and non-clinical group on the INEQ.Discriminant validity was supported by a stronger correlation between the INEQ and neuroticism than correlations between the INEQ and extraversion and openness.Concurrent validity was supported by finding correlations with measures of self-efficacy,symptoms,and happiness as expected.The final INEQ was also shown to have good test-retest reliability.Study 5 aimed to explore whether individualized negative essentialism mediated the relationship between perceived chronic social adversity and traumatic symptoms.In this study,651 subjects were collected.We tested the latent variable mediation model and found individualized negative essentialism played a significant mediating role between perceived chronic social adversity and traumatic symptoms.This result suggested that by reducing the tendency of individualized negative essentialism,it can reduce the possibility that individuals who perceived chronic social adversities developed traumatic symptoms.The purpose of Study 6 was to further explore the process of developing traumatic symptoms in individuals who perceived chronic social adversity.A sample including 541 subjects was collected in this study.First,under controlling traumatic events,we once again proved that individualized negative essentialism played a mediating role between perceived chronic social adversity and traumatic symptoms.Second,we incorporated sense of control in the model and found that perceived chronic social adversity can predict traumatic symptoms through the continuous mediating effect of individualized negative essentialism and sense of control.Finally,we incorporated negative memory immergence in the model and found out that perceived chronic social adversity can effectively predict traumatic symptoms through the continuous mediating effect of negative memory immergence,individualized negative essentialism and sense of control;perceived chronic social adversity can significantly predict happiness and resilience via the mediating effect of negative memory immergence.In general,this study developed two questionnaires with good reliability and validity: the PCSAQ and the INEQ.On this basis,we for the first time systematically explored the relationship between traumatic symptoms and daily social stressors which are not directly life-threatening but will directly make negative impact on individual's emotion.Based on cross-sectional data,we also for the first time explored the process of developing traumatic symptoms in individuals who perceived chronic social adversity on the theoretical level.Perceived chronic social adversity will facilitate the essentialist tendency in categorizing individual experiences,reduce sense of control,and finally lead to traumatic symptoms.However,through reversing negative memory immergence,we can reduce individualized negative essentialism,enhance sense of control and alleviate traumatic symptoms,as well as accelerating adaptive results.Based on the existing samples,our research suggested that continuous accumulation of social adversity may make individuals feel overwhelmed and develop traumatic symptoms.However,at the same time,individuals may still possibly develop adaptive outcomes through regulating their inner cognition in face of social adversity.This not only reminded us not to underestimate the impact of chronic social adversity on individuals,but also reminded us not to look too pessimistic about chronic social adversity.On one hand this research explored the relationship model involving perceived chronic social adversity and traumatic symptoms,on the other hand it proposed corresponding psychotherapy recommendations based on this model.In other words,this research has both theoretical and practical values.