Abstract

This study examined the role of cognitive factors in complicated grief and posttraumatic growth in young adults who experienced parental death during adolescence. Specifically, using a three-month short-term longitudinal design, we examined the mediating role of meaning reconstruction and traumatized self-system in the effect of event centrality on complicated grief or posttraumatic growth. Adults aged 19 to 29 years who experienced parental death during adolescence were recruited for this study. Two hundred participants responded to the baseline online survey (Time 1), and 150 completed a follow-up survey after three months (Time 2). As expected, event centrality was positively associated with complicated grief or posttraumatic growth at Times 1 and 2. The test of a mediation model for complicated grief indicated that neither traumatized self-system nor meaning reconstruction mediated the relationship between event centrality and complicated grief at Time 2. However, higher levels of traumatized self-system were cross-sectionally associated with complicated grief at Time 1. Conversely, both traumatized self-system and meaning reconstruction significantly mediated the relationship between event centrality and posttraumatic growth at Time 2. These findings suggest that reducing traumatized self-system and enhancing meaning reconstruction could help develop posttraumatic growth whereas such intervention may not help reduce complicated grief longitudinally.