Posttraumatic growth following cancer : the influence of emotional intelligence, management of intrusive rumination and goal disengagement as mediated by deliberate rumination

Numerous researchers have demonstrated that deliberate rumination serves as the foremost precursor to posttraumatic growth (PTG). However, understanding of the factors responsible for facilitating deliberate rumination remains limited. The purpose of the present study was to examine three factors proposed by the functional-descriptive model of PTG as facilitators of deliberate rumination—emotional intelligence, management of intrusive rumination, and goal disengagement—among the cancer survivor population. Following from the functional-descriptive model and existing empirical research, it was hypothesized that the three factors would be positively related to deliberate rumination, and that deliberate rumination would partially mediate the associations between these factors and PTG. Two-hundred and twenty-one cancer survivors were surveyed and data were analyzed using path analysis. Hypotheses were partially supported, such that results suggested a positive link between emotional intelligence and PTG and deliberate rumination and PTG, and a negative link between management of intrusive rumination and deliberate rumination and goal disengagement and deliberate rumination. Mediation was not supported. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.