resilience to adversity

Question 1

what is adversity?

Answer 1

• Clinical trauma vs sever stressors/adversity
• Traumatic events (DSM5) ‘exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury or sexual violence’
• -ve & severely stressful major life events that disrupt & impact quality of life e.g. divorce, job loss
• Resilience research has examined a wide diversity of severely stressful events

Question 2

what is resilience

Answer 2

• Multiple definitions: all involve a +ve response/adaptation to -ve circumstances
• An outcome pattern characterised by a stable trajectory of healthy functioning after adversity (Bonanno, 2004)
• Ability to ‘bounce back’ & flexibly adapt to changing demands of -ve life situations (Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004)

how you define matters - how you measure it

Question 3

how is resilience measured?

Answer 3

• resilience questionnaires
• resilience trajectory

Question 4

resilience questionnaires

Answer 4

• measured like a trait
• questions about how you generally react to stressors

Question 5

resilience trajectory

Answer 5

• measured after event
• identifies ppl that show a resilient outcome pattern over time

Question 6

reactions to adversity

Answer 6

• resilience - never leave mild symptom range (stability)
• recovery - moderate/severe reactions which decreases over time
• delayed - symptoms increase over time
• chronic - stays in severe category

other ppl would say resilience is the ability to bounce back

Question 7

resilience as a new concept

Answer 7

• historically viewed as a rare occurence = absent grief
• Bonanno (2004) - bereavement theorists viewed absent grief as a rare & pathological reaction
• BUT research contradicts this assumption

Question 8

bonanno et al. (2002)

resilience prevalence in bereavement

Answer 8

• prospective study on spousal loss
• outcome pattern: resilience, common grief, chronic grief
• prevalence: resilient –> common grief –> chronic grief
• no ev of marriage difficulties
• resilient ppl still affected by bereavement: yearning, emotional upset, intrusive thoughts, disturbances in sleep but not at a level impacting too much

Question 9

latent growth micture modelling

LGMM

Answer 9

• identifies sub-populations in data
• allows examination of diff outcome trajectories for each sub-group

Question 10

prevalence in spousal loss

Answer 10

• subjective well-being as outcome measure (instead of resilience)
• LGMM showed 4-class solution best fit to data
• resilient group - small dip but stay high functioning
• acute recovery group - decrease before loss but increase towards original level
• chronic low group - low functioning, dips and stays low
• improved group - increase at loss and then decreases towards original level

Question 11

prevalence in divorce

LGMM

Answer 11

• SWB used
• 3-class solution best fit to data
• resilient - stay high functioning whole time
• moderate increasing - decrease towards divorce & increasing 2-4yrs after divorce
• low increasing - moderate functioning rapidly increasing after divorce

Question 12

is resilience the common trajectory?

norris et al. (2009)

Answer 12

• 9/11 and floods in mexico
• PTSD symptoms measured post-disaster
• resilience = adaptability
• resistance = stability
• no diffs in resistance & stability in mexico
• diffs in resistance & stability in US

Question 13

how common is resilience?

infurna & luthar (2016)

Answer 13

• LGMM using SEOP data
• 3 models: (A) same as prior studies, (B) variance but show same patterns, (C) ‘bouncing back’ but at diff times
• spousal loss: A resilient most prevalent, B recovery most prevalent, C equal split between resilience & recovery
• divorce: A resilient most prevalent, dropped when model specifications changed (B&C)

Question 14

resilience in longitudinal studies

Answer 14

• Operationalisation of resilience is often data-driven in longitudinal designs
• Resilience is not measured directly, but inferred from an adaptive response over time
• Resilience = absence of depression symptoms, reduction in PTSD symptoms, stable pattern of subjective well-being

Question 15

defining resilience: systematic review

cosco et al. (2017)

Answer 15

• inclusion criteria: longitudinal data, operationalised & measured resilience, published peer-reviewed research
• measured in 3 ways: psychometric questionnaires, definition-driven methods, data-driven methods
• Most studies defined resilience as the absence of distress/impairment, not maintenance of well-being
• Although stats inform how trajectories are identified, researchers still have to interpret & label the trajectories
• Data driven methods for trajectory identification are based on the characteristics of the sample & may not generalise to other samples

Question 16

is resilience multidimensional?

infurna & luthar (2017)

Answer 16

• most research has examined resilience as single outcome trajectories
• Ppl might show resilient responses in some domains of life, but show less in other domains
• Investigation of the multidimensional nature of resilience is important to test the extent that resilience is a common outcome

Question 17

mutlidimensional resilient outcomes

infurna & luthar (2017)

Answer 17

• analysis of 13 waves of existing longitudinal data
• widowed during study
• Selected multiple domains of adjustment: life satisfaction, +ve emotions, -ve emotions, general health, physical functioning in multiple daily activities
• resilient outcome trajectories were defined as stable good functioning over time
• resilience only the most common outcome for life satisfaction
• only 8% of sample classified as showing a resilient trajectory across all 5 domains of functioning