Difference Between Accessible Social Network and Perceived Social Support in Posttraumatic Growth

Abstract

Posttraumatic growth is the positive change in people’s thoughts, behaviors, interests among people who were exposed to some serious traumas. Social support has been an important factor for posttraumatic growth, but limited study has looked into the differences between subjectively social support and objectively social support. This paper investigated the relationship between social support (perceived and accessible) and posttraumatic growth. The data were collected from 200 Chinese students through a self-report online survey. The survey includes evaluation of posttraumatic growth, posttraumatic stress disorder, perceived and accessible social support, social network diversity, socioeconomic status, and also trauma history questionnaire. The regression test showed a significant positive correlation between the variables and we further looked into whether there is a difference between perceived social support and accessible social resources. Using the regression test again, we found out that posttraumatic growth is most likely benefit from both perceived SS and objectively accessible social resources. This result suggests that people don’t need to have accessible social support as long as they believe they will receive support when they need it, or people do not need to believe they have social support around them as long as the community is providing different types of support. Either of the movements is possible to help people to develop PTG after trauma.