searcHIng for and fIndIng MeanIng folloWIng personal and collectIVe traUMas

doI: 10.1037/14040-012 The Psychology of Meaning, Keith d. Markman, travis proulx, and Matthew J. lindberg (editors) copyright © 2013 by the american psychological association. all rights reserved. adversity is common. Most individuals will experience a personal tragedy in their lifetimes, whether it is a sudden unexpected loss, traumatic injury, or life-threatening illness (seery, Holman, & silver, 2010). Many will experience an undesirable life event in any given year (norris, 1992). sometimes an entire community will be exposed to a natural or technological disaster, school shooting, or terrorist attack, although those directly affected often seem to be selected at random, and others appear to be spared at random (cf. Wayment, silver, & Kemeny, 1995). these collective traumatic events become a shared experience among many victims. Both personally experienced and collective traumas are often sudden, unexpected, and unpredictable. Because of these features, they have the potential to challenge people’s expectations about living in an orderly, understandable, meaningful world (Janoff-Bulman, 1992; park & folkman, 1997). Indeed, some have argued that what makes traumatic events so distressing is that they violate many of the basic assumptions people have about 12