Romantic relationship dissolution is a common and developmentally significant experience among emerging adults that can have negative psychological consequences but may also lead to posttraumatic personal growth. The aim of this master's thesis was to examine how resilience, perceived social support and situational factors related to the breakup are associated with posttraumatic growth following romantic relationship dissolution in emerging adulthood and which of these factors contribute more significantly and independently to its prediction. An online questionnaire was completed by emerging adults (N = 275, 76.7% women) aged between 18 and 30, who had experienced the dissolution of a romantic relationship lasting at least one month within the past 24 months. Participants completed the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support and the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory. Additionally, they answered questions about the characteristics of the dissolved relationship and their current relationship status. Results showed that higher posttraumatic growth was associated with higher resilience, higher perceived social support, longer relationship duration, more time since the breakup and lower perceived quality of the past relationship. No associations or differences emerged regarding gender, sexual orientation, the role in the breakup or age. Perceived social support emerged as the strongest independent predictor of posttraumatic growth, followed by relationship duration and quality, while resilience lost its independent contribution once the other factors were accounted for. The final model explained a fifth of the variance in posttraumatic growth. The thesis contributes to the understanding of the factors associated with personal growth among emerging adults following a romantic breakup.
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