Are happier people less vulnerable to rumination, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress? Evidence from a large scale disaster

Abstract

The present longitudinal study tested hypotheses about the relationship of subjective well-being and neuroticism with rumination, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress in university students after a large scale disaster. Measures of subjective well-being and personality were obtained two months before the 2013 Santa Maria's fire. Measures of rumination, PTSD and anxiety were collected five months after the disaster with the same students. The results provide evidence that life satisfaction correlated negatively with rumination, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress. Positive affect presented similar but slightly smaller negative correlations with these variables, while negative affect presented higher correlations with rumination, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress. These findings provide evidence that subjective well-being components may constitute important predictors of psychopathological symptomatology after a disaster and may be helpful to plan clinical interventions.