Bullying as a Source of Posttraumatic Growth in Individuals with Visual Impairments

Bullying has been recognized as a major public health concern and may be conceptualized as a potentially traumatic experience. A growing body of literature has documented posttraumatic growth (PTG), or positive psychological changes following traumatic experiences, yet no studies have examined bullying as a potential precursor to PTG. This work examined spontaneous expressions of PTG in response to bullying experiences in a sample of 51 adults with visual impairments (Study 1) as well as quantitative relationships between self-reported bullying severity and PTG in 33 children with visual impairments (Study 2). Adults and children with visual impairments were selected as the test populations because limited available research suggests that individuals with disabilities are disproportionally affected by bullying. Indeed, the current results revealed prevalent bullying experiences reported by adults (84 %) and children (48 %) in these samples. Further, approximately 35 % of the adults who had been bullied spontaneously reported experiencing PTG (Study 1), and self-reported severity of bullying experiences exhibited a large, positive relationship with PTG in children (Study 2). Implications and future directions are discussed.