Cognitive processes of posttraumatic growth in Chinese culture : a conceptual framework

Posttraumatic growth (PTG) refers to psychological or personal positive changes which occur as a result of struggling with a major life crisis. Despite socio-cultural influences have been conceptualised to play an important role in the cognitive processing underlying the development of PTG, very few growth researchers have examined how cultural beliefs may shape the ways in which individuals perceive themselves, the triggering event, and how they respond to such major life changes. The present paper proposes a conceptual framework which is developed based on the functional-descriptive model of PTG to examine the role of Chinese cultural beliefs in the PTG process. The propositions developed in the present paper would provide scope for future research to validate and refine the proposed conceptual framework, and begin to disentangle the importance of the under-explored cultural influences in the PTG process in the Chinese culture