Abstract
Over the past two decades there has been growing interest in how events, roles, or relationships that are central to an individual’s identity relate to trauma- and stressor-related psychopathology. However, the field lacks a systematic review to synthesize current knowledge across various facets of identity centrality and guide future research in meaningful ways. This systematic review and meta-analysis of the relationship between identity centrality and trauma- and stressor-related psychopathology identified 154 studies (96.1% traumatic stress, 9.7% prolonged grief) representing 66,371 individual participants. Three constructs were identified: event centrality (96% of studies), role centrality (1.9% of studies), and relationship centrality (2.6% of studies). Meta-analysis of 124 studies examining event centrality (k = 249) revealed a medium to large positive association between measures of centrality and severity of traumatic stress and prolonged grief symptoms (mean effect size of r = .446). However, heterogeneity was high. Moderators of outcomes included event type and cultural background. Notably, most studies were cross-sectional (86.4%), precluding causal conclusions. However, emerging evidence indicates that identity centrality and symptom severity may follow independent trajectories over time, raising questions about whether centrality represents a cause or consequence of distress, or a distinct process, and about the role of associated appraisals. Further, the literature is dominated by studies from WEIRD countries. The field would benefit from systematic reporting of key study characteristics such as time since index event, and studies designed to examine causal relationships. Further, most attention has been paid to event centrality, yet this is only one form of identity centrality. Constructs such as role centrality and relationship centrality should be further investigated where theoretically indicated.