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This study examined whether perceiving an event as a trauma influenced a cognitive processing model explaining posttraumatic growth (PTG). A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted with 311 university students from eight universities in Japan. The participants provided information about the most stressful event they had experienced and completed the expanded version of the PTG Inventory, Core Belief Inventory, Event Related Rumination Inventory, and Cognitive and Emotional Processing from Disclosure Inventory. A multi-group structural equation modeling was conducted by dividing the participants into two groups depending on whether they identified the most stressful event as a trauma. The model with no constraint showed a good fit. The model with partial constraint showed a better fit than the models with no constraint or full constraint. The difference of the model was seen as a covariance between the Event Related Rumination Inventory and the Cognitive and Emotional Processing from Disclosure Inventory. The results demonstrated configural invariance and partial metric invariance. This indicated that PTG would be recognized irrespective of whether the event was perceived as a trauma. This study also indicated that different factors out of the model could be associated with the ruminative process and disclosure process. The importance of focusing on the process of PTG, regardless of an individual's perception of the event, was emphasized, especially for factors related to rumination and disclosure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Executive functioning (EF) plays a major role in many domains of human behaviour, including self-regulation, academic achievement, and even sports expertise. While a significant proportion of cross-sectional research has focused on the developmental pathways of EF, the existing literature is fractionated due to a wide range of methodologies applied to narrow age ranges, impeding comparison across a broad range of age groups. The current study used a cross-sectional design to investigate the factor structure of EF within late childhood and adolescence. A total of 2166 Flemish children and adolescents completed seven tasks of the Cambridge Brain Sciences test battery. Based on the existing literature, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis was performed, which indicated that a unitary factor model provides the best fit for the youngest age group (7–12 years). For the adolescents (12–18 years), the factor structure consists of four different components, including working memory, shifting, inhibition and planning. With regard to differences between early (12–15 years) and late (15–18 years) adolescents, working memory, inhibition and planning show higher scores for the late adolescents, while there was no difference on shifting. The current study is one of the first to administer the same seven EF tests in a considerably large sample of children and adolescents, and as such contributes to the understanding of the developmental trends in EF. Future studies, especially with longitudinal designs, are encouraged to further increase the knowledge concerning the factor structure of EF, and the development of the different EF components. • Executive functioning of 2166 7- to 19-year-olds was assessed using seven tasks. • A unitary factor structure describes executive functioning in up to 12-year-olds. • A four-factor model best characterizes executive functioning in adolescents. • This model consists of planning, inhibition, shifting and working memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]