Resilience refers to the ability to maintain or regain mental health, despite experiencing adversity (Wald et al., 2006). Those who have increased resilience are able to adapt to change, deal with what comes along, cope with stress, stay focused and think clearly, not get discouraged in the face of failure, and handle unpleasant feelings such as anger, pain, or sadness. 

Resilience was operationalized using  The Connor Davidson +Brief Resilience Scales (CD-RISC-10) (Vaishnavi et al., 2007). This scale measures one's ability to bounce back after stressful events, tragedies, or traumas. The CD-RISC-10 is a 10-Item Likert Scale that was converted into a continuous scale for the purposes of this class. Each question is on a 0-11 Scale, higher scores indicated higher levels of resilience. 

Sample Questions:

• I am able to adapt when changes occur

• Under pressure, I stay focused and think clearly

The CD-RISC scales are the most widely used resilience scale and have consistently shown to have the best psychometric properties (Windle et al., 2011). The CD-RISC-10 shows the best combination of reliability, validity, and practicality when compared to the other CD-RISC version (Kuiper et al., 2019). 

Early research on resilience focused on the strengths or assets, such as intellectual functioning that helped individuals survive specific adversities. But over time, the types of adversity were broadened to include negative life events across the lifespan associated with adjustment difficulties or subsequent mental disorders. These adversities include deficient parenting, poverty, homelessness, traumatic events, natural disasters, violence, war, and physical illness (Herrman et al., 2011). 

Research on resilience has focused on the contribution of systems (families, services, groups, and communities) to assist individuals in coping with adversity (Ciccetti, 2010). 

There are many different studied sources that impact resilience. These include:

• Personal Factors

  • Personality traits (openness, extraversion, and agreeableness)

  • Internal locus of control

  • self-efficacy

  • self-esteem

  • cognitive appraisal

• Biological Factors

  • Genetics

  • Gender

  • Brain Size

• Environmental-Systemic Factors

  • Childhood maltreatment

  • social support

  • Community factors

    • good schools

    • community services

    • sports and artistic opportunities

    • cultural factors

    • spirituality and religion

    • exposure to violence

• Interaction between Personal, Genetic, and Environmental Factors

With all of these factors having an impact on resilience levels in individuals, it is important to understand that effective clinical care and public health work to help individuals increase their resilience requires partnerships across health and non-health sectors. Clinical and public health interventions each have an important role in helping to improve the chances of increased resilience among individuals affected by severe life adversities (Herrman et al., 2011). 

Check out the research below that the students of the Spring 2023 PSYC 300 class have conducted on this topic!