Collective post-traumatic growth: Validating and measuring positive change in the collective self among victims of sexual violence

Across the world, women's personal responses to gender-based violence are increasingly political. In the current paper, we consider whether positive changes in the collective self, arising from personal experience of gender-based violence, which may lie at the heart of this phenomenon, can be evidenced. Four studies are reported that evidence and validate a proposed construct that reveals collective post-traumatic growth (PTG) among people who have experienced sexual violence. Confirmatory factor analyses, including a preregistered analysis, indicate that collective PTG is a multidimensional construct and is distinct, yet related to personal PTG. A longitudinal analysis offers evidence of stability and highlights the importance of collective efficacy and group solidarity in determining collective PTG over time. A final experimental study provides evidence of collective PTG determining people's emotional responses to reminders of their trauma. Taken together, these studies emphasize the significance of collective growth as an often overlooked, though positive and important, sociopolitical response to direct experiences of very personal trauma.