Clear and compelling, Is There Always Value to Adversity? presents an interdisciplinary exploration of the age-old idea that adversity can lead to personal growth. Can adversity have an upside? Is there a purpose to suffering? Can difficult experiences involving trauma and hardship make us stronger? These age-old questions, both intuitively compelling yet scientifically problematic, have fascinated philosophers and researchers for centuries. In Is There Always Value to Adversi...

How to develop good character is a question that resonates with many people. Parents wonder how to instill virtues in their children, educators seek effective ways to build character in their students, and researchers study how moral qualities can be cultivated in citizens. This broad interest reflects a fundamental human concern: can we intentionally develop better character? Although different stakeholders may emphasize different aspects-from parental focus on raising ethical children to...

The literature on post-traumatic growth (PTG) has been instrumental in highlighting the human capacity to overcome adversity, illuminating the different pathways people may follow when confronted with adversity. Although the theme of strength from adversity is central to many disciplines and certain cultural narratives, these claims lack robust empirical evidence. This literature gap can be traced to a reliance on retrospective assessments for methodology and difficulty in determining whic...

Can adversity lead to enduring positive change across the lifespan? Providing a thoughtful and considered exploration of this question, this book presents a critical reassessment of posttraumatic growth, based on correcting prior theoretical and methodological limitations in the current research. Its core argument is that posttraumatic growth should be reconceptualized as positive personality change, and thus should be studied using novel methodological approaches from the field of persona...

Clear and compelling, Is There Always Value to Adversity? presents an interdisciplinary exploration of the age-old idea that adversity can lead to personal growth.Can adversity have an upside? Is there a purpose to suffering? Can difficult experiences involving trauma and hardship make us stronger? These age-old questions, both intuitively compelling yet scientifically problematic, have fascinated philosophers and research...