Emmie Palmer

ENGL 101
Extra Credit Article Write Up #1
Is the Holocaust Implicated in Posttraumatic Growth in Second-Generation
Holocaust Survivors? A Prospective Study
This article focuses on a study of Israeli males who were combat veterans in the Yom Kipper
War of 1973. A percentage of the veterans were second-generation Holocaust survivors (which the
authors define as having at least one parent who was a Holocaust survivor), and the rest of the
participants were not associated with the Holocaust. The investigators aim is to determine whether
or not being a second-generation Holocaust survivor affects the veterans posttraumatic growth
abilities. This study is part of a larger study on veterans of the Yom Kipper War. The study is broken
into three measurements, Time 1 being 18 years after the war, Time 2 being 30 years after the war,
and Time 3 being 35 years after the war.
The investigators state that they hypothesize that traumatic-related psychological growth
may possibly transmit from Holocaust survivors to their offspring (Dekel, Mandl, & Solomon,
2013). They looked at previous research to find that many Holocaust survivors developed strong
posttraumatic growth (PTG), and they wondered if that could have affected the children of these
Holocaust survivors in their ability to find good in the midst of trauma.
The study involved three different time points of research, Time 1, Time , and Time 3. There
were 287 veterans involved in the study at Time 1. That number shrank to 199 involved in Time 2. Of
those 199, 43 of the veterans were second-generation Holocaust survivors, and 156 were not. In Time
3, the sample size of participants once again shrunk to 151, including 33 second-generation
Holocaust survivors, and 118 veterans who were not. The participants were all male, had a mean age
of 53.4 at the time of the Time 2 research, and had an average of 14.02 years of schooling. Four

measures were used to determine posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic stress disorder among the
veterans. To measure PTG, the researchers used the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, and to measure
PTSD symptoms, the PTSD Inventory assessment was given. In addition, a self-designed
questionnaire was used to measure encounters with battlefield stressors during the war and
participation in military operations before the war (Dekel, Mandl, & Solomon, 2013). Lastly, the
Life Events Questionnaire was used to assess postwar negative events.
The study found that second-generation Holocaust survivors do not in fact have high levels of
posttraumatic growth. The second-generation survivors had lower levels of PTG than the non
second-generation survivors. The second-generation Holocaust survivors also reported lower levels
of growth in relating to others, personal strength, and appreciation for life. These findings may
suggest that peoples ability to respond positively to trauma may be limited by being a secondgeneration Holocaust survivor.
The article goes on to give multiple suggestions for why the results came back as they did.
The first reason they describe is that Holocaust survivors preference to not talk about trauma may
have been passed down to their children, and this lack of communicating their trauma hindered
posttraumatic growth. Second, the authors suggest that the second-generation could be carrying on
the guilt their parents have of surviving the Holocaust when millions of others did not, which
hindered their ability to experience PTG. Third is the reasoning that being repeatedly exposed to
trauma of their parents, they developed a diminished response to trauma. Fourth, there could be
transgenerational transmission of cognitive schemas that alter the second-generations response to
trauma, which includes lowered PTG. Fifth, the second-generation may have become numb to future
posttraumatic growth due to an immersion in the Holocaust and identifying with it. Lastly, there is
the argument that no transgenerational transmission occurs, but were this accurate, it would be
expected that second-generation survivors and non-survivors would have relatively equal scores of

PTG. Since that is not what the results of the study show, the researchers believe that
transgenerational transmission does affect trauma coping.
To me, this article relates to personality in that it explores the potential for transgenerational
transmission to influence personality. Although the findings were opposite of what the investigators
hypothesized, the results still suggest that transgenerational transmission does influence personality.
However, I think it is important to keep the central debate of psychology in mind, and think about
how much was determined by nature in terms of heredity, and how nurture came into play with the
participants being raised by a Holocaust survivor. I think both are likely to account for the findings in
this article.

References:
Dekel, S., Mandl, C., & Solomon, Z. (2013). Is the Holocaust implicated in posttraumatic growth in
secondgeneration Holocaust survivors? A prospective study. Journal Of Traumatic
Stress, 26(4), 530-533. doi:10.1002/jts.21836