Disaster Exposure and Early Self-Reported Posttraumatic Growth: Indirect Associations Through Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Moderation by Dark Triad Traits

Associations between disaster exposure and posttraumatic growth (PTG) are inconsistent, highlighting the potential relevance of cognitive processing and personality differences. This study surveyed 1498 individuals within one week of the July 2021 Henan floods to examine the associations among disaster exposure, early self-reported PTG, cognitive emotion regulation (CER), and Dark Triad traits. Disaster exposure showed a small positive association with PTG in the unadjusted model (b = 0.324, p < 0.001), which became nonsignificant after adjusting for gender, age, and current location (b = 0.146, p = 0.139). In the unadjusted parallel indirect-association model, disaster exposure showed positive indirect associations with PTG through both adaptive CER (estimate = 0.079, 95% CI [0.031, 0.144]) and maladaptive CER (estimate = 0.166, 95% CI [0.083, 0.256]), whereas the direct association was nonsignificant. After adjustment, only the indirect association through maladaptive CER remained distinguishable from zero. Dark Triad traits moderated several component associations, but only the conditional indirect association through adaptive CER differed across Dark Triad levels. Early perceived PTG was more closely associated with patterns of cognitive emotion regulation and personality differences than with disaster exposure severity alone. However, the cross-sectional design precludes temporal or causal interpretations, underscoring the need to distinguish early perceptions of growth from enduring psychological adaptation.