Keywords

Psychology has traditionally focused more on the study of symptoms and disorders than on positive characteristics of individuals. The reason for this deficit-based approach may be traced to the aftermath of World War II (Seligman 2002) when the priority of psychologists was to ‘repair damage’ (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000) versus enhancing well-being. However, with Martin Seligman’s presidential speech of the APA in 1998, where he drew attention to the fact that psychology is not just the study of pathology and damage, but also the study of strength and virtue, there began an effort to shift the attention from ‘preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life, to building positive qualities (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000, p. 5). This led to a series of studies on positive emotions, positive characteristics and positive institutions—all of which had not been priority areas in psychological research for a very long time. One of the areas that benefitted immensely from this movement is the area of psychological resilience.

Origin and Background of Resilience Research

The term ‘resilience’ is believed to have originated from the Latin word ‘resilire’ which means ‘to recoil or leap back’, and was typically used in the area of physical sciences and engineering to refer to the capacity to withstand strain without breaking or to recover to original form like a spring (Masten and Gewirtz 2006). Anthony (1974) presented the interesting analogy of three dolls made of glass, plastic and steel respectively to explain the concept. When struck by a hammer, the first doll shatters, the second is permanently damaged, and the third only emits a fine metallic sound, indicating its resilience to stress. While resilience was earlier described as ‘bouncing back’ from adversity (Luthar and Cicchetti 2000), the idea of ‘bouncing forward’ (Walsh 2002) came to be proposed later. Over the years, the construct has been operationalized in a variety of ways; however Fletcher and Sarkar (2013) observe that most definitions are based around the core concepts of adversity and positive adaptation. Simply defined, it is the phenomenon of displaying competence despite challenges. Recently, Bonanno et al. (2015) acknowledged that the term has taken on overlapping meanings and suggested that resilience studies must ‘explicitly reference each of four constituent temporal elements: (a) baseline or preadversity functioning, (b) the actual aversive circumstances, (c) postadversity resilient outcomes, and (d) predictors of resilient outcomes” (p. 139).

Researchers have often referred to the concepts of risk, vulnerability and protective factors in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of resilience.

Risk and Protective Factors

Risk is defined as a psychosocial adversity that could maintain a problem condition and thus hinder functioning (Masten 1994). These may either work singly or in combination with other risk factors and may often pile up over time (Rutter 1987); this is referred to as cumulative risk. Adversities may occur in different forms such as illness, natural calamity or job stress and may cause different kinds of disturbances—short term, severe and chronic. Vulnerability to overwhelming obstacles is not unnatural, neither is it true that exposure to adversity would always and necessarily render us permanently damaged. Rather, these may make us stronger and better equipped to face further challenges ahead. However, not all individuals who are exposed to the same adversity exhibit similar levels of resilience. This difference is explained by how individuals use the protective factors available to them. The role of a protective factor is to buffer, interrupt or even prevent risk (Rutter 1987), thus playing a crucial part in the resiliency process. Like risk factors, they have a cumulative impact, that is, success in one area can serve as a springboard for success in other areas (Killian 2004). The critical feature of protective factors that is to be inferred is how it modifies one’s response to a risk situation that in ordinary circumstances may lead to maladaptive outcome (Rutter 1987). Protective factors may range from internal buffers such as self-efficacy to external ones including strong relationships and community support.

Theoretical Models of Resilience

In their attempt to explain why some individuals are able to show competence despite adversities, researchers have proposed several theoretical models. Antonovosky’s (1979) Sense of Coherence Model and Kobasa’s (1979) Hardiness Model may be one of the earliest attempts to explain positive adaptation. Grotberg’s (1999) paradigm of resilience introduced the components of ‘I have’, ‘I am’, and ‘I Can’ to explain the mechanism of resilience in youth with depression while Kumpfer (1999) presented a person–environment transactional process that may lead to either resilient or maladaptive reintegration. Later, Richardson (2002) described a simple linear model that shows how individuals consciously or unconsciously go through the stages of biopsychospiritual homeostasis, disruption and integration that may result in either resilient reintegration, reintegration back to homeostasis, reintegration with loss, or dysfunctional reintegration. Interventions among adolescents were proposed through the youth resilience framework that highlights individual and sociocultural risk and protective factors (Ahern 2006; Rew and Horner 2003). Knight (2007) claims that the all-encompassing 3D-framework of resilience presenting the concept as a state, condition, and practice, can be applied in all contexts whereas van Breda’s (2011) model that conceptualizes the workplace as a social system includes a range of environments such as schools, universities, hospitals, military, shops, welfare agencies, or factories and incorporates stressors, risk factors, protective factors and outcomes. All these models focus on complex transactional and developmental pathway systems (Kumpfer 1999) which are interrelated and interdependent (Killian 2004), thus influencing the interaction between the resilience factors and adversity. Researchers have often referred to these models in accordance with the contexts being assessed.

Conceptual and Methodological Constraints in Studying Resilience

Over the years, researchers have encountered several conceptual and methodological constraints in studying resilience. Even as they continued to systematically conduct empirical studies on resilience, researchers were simultaneously working on conceptualizing it in a better way. For instance, the terms ‘invulnerable’ and ‘invincible’ that were earlier used synonymously with resilience came to be rejected later as they refer to an absolute resistance to damage as if the individual was unscathed by the situation (Werner and Smith 1982). Furthermore, the initial conceptualization of resilience as a cluster of traits was later discarded in favour of the idea that this is a process that develops overtime by the interaction of the person with the environment (Masten 2001; Rutter 2012). While the concept continued to evolve over time, there were also attempts at providing distinctions between resilience and similar processes including adjustment, coping, competence and post-traumatic growth. Despite overlaps between many of these conceptualizations, it may be noted that researchers do agree on the assumption that resilience is understood to demonstrate positive outcome during adversity (Ungar 2008).

The assessment of the construct like its definition, has invited several controversies. One of the most discussed issues is regarding the criteria that may be used as a marker of resilience (Luthar and Cicchetti 2000; Masten 2001). Researchers recommend that the identification of resilience ought to involve judgements about the differences between the expected and observed outcomes (Masten 2001). These outcomes should preferably include both internal and external adaptation, as resilience relates to competent behaviour and not merely the absence of emotional distress. For instance, those who do not display obvious signs of mental suffering may be internalizing their symptoms thus showing apparent resilience (Luthar 2006). Internalized symptoms if left unattended can eventually derail apparently resilient trajectories (Luthar and Cicchetti 2000).

Furthermore, notions of overall resilience are considered to be of questionable utility, hence, Luthar (2006) recommends assessing it in terms of domain-specific competence such as academic, social or emotional. Researchers should also consider that certain factors can function as both risk and protective depending on the context (Rutter 1985) hence the assessment of resilience has to be derived from finding an interactive effect between them (M. Rutter, personal communication, April 19, 2007). Additionally, due to the varied manifestations of resilience in different scenarios, drawing overall conclusions becomes difficult. Rutter (2012) notes that the vast ‘…heterogeneity in people’s responses to all manner of environmental adversities…’ (p. 335) has proven to be a challenge for researchers. Hence, the criteria for positive adaptation must be set in accordance with the characteristics of the sample and adversity under scrutiny (Fletcher and Sarkar 2013).

Of the resilience tools that have been developed so far, the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, and Resilience Scale (Wagnild and Young 1993) are popular. Efforts are being made to study the psychometric properties of these instruments in different contexts; simultaneously, measures for specific populations such as gender minorities have been developed (Testa et al. 2015). Windle et al. (2011) methodological review in which 2979 studies were screened to select 19 resilience measures for a quality criteria appraisal, concluded that all 19 tools require further validation work. The authors suggest that all relevant validation statistics of tools be reported by future researchers. Also, resilience is a subjective concept and therefore, not simple to define; so researchers need to take into account individual perceptions (Masten 2001) while developing tools that can be used to assess resilience in different contexts.

Trajectory of Resilience Research

Resilience research is understood to have emerged in three waves: the first identifying individual resilience and factors, the second wave describing processes embedding resilience in developmental and ecological systems, the third aiming at highlighting interventions that foster resilience and finally, the fourth discovering resilience at cellular and neural levels (Masten 2007; O’Dougherty Wright et al. 2013). Initial resilience research including the Isle of Wight (Rutter 1987), Island of Kauai (Werner and Smith 1982) and Project Competence (Garmezy 1974) studies, had focused largely on children who despite growing up in adversity had showed good adjustment in later life. These landmark investigations laid the foundation for the future generation of resilience researchers who extended this work to include adults, families and communities, as well as different kinds of adversities. The construct is now applicable not only in case of severely critical situations such as natural calamity but also in case of everyday matters such as job stress and marital adjustment. Considering this, many resilience investigations have focused on stressors commonly encountered in transition from one life situation to another. Over time, investigators also began to show interest in the biological mechanisms involving resilience. The idea that exposure to adversities may either increase vulnerabilities through a sensitization effect or decrease vulnerabilities through a ‘steeling effect’ has been suggested (Rutter 2012, p. 337). Rutter cites immunization as an example where immunity is induced by administering a controlled dose of a modified version of the pathogen. The applicability of these results to psychosocial stressors and psychopathological outcomes in humans are being tested (Rutter 2012).

Recent Research on Resilience

A review of publications was conducted to specifically understand the current trend of research in the area. The search revealed that a large number of studies are being conducted on children, adolescents and women in the context of different adversities including multiple unfavourable childhood experiences among the war-affected youth (Panter-Brick et al. 2015) and body image issues in women (Snapp et al. 2012). Similarly, studies on specific samples such as older adults in same-sex relationships (Dziengel 2012) and Olympic champions (Fletcher and Sarkar 2012); certain adversities such as hurricane Sandy (Lowe et al. 2015), conflict-driven migration (Siriwardhana et al. 2014) and parental rejection and punishment behaviour (Petrowski et al. 2014) were recalled.

There is a remarkable trend that contemporary resilience researchers have been exploring novel areas by employing interesting approaches. For instance, Mazulyte et al. (2014) studied trauma experience, psychological resilience and dispositional optimism in three adult generations in Lithuania. Furthermore, Korstanje and Ivanov (2012) examined if tourism may be considered a resilient activity. Citing examples from museums, battlefields, masterpieces of art, cemeteries and other zones of disasters, the researchers explained how tourism works as a mechanism that society develops to intellectualize disasters. Researchers describe this as dark tourism, a process of psychological resilience that helps the community to understand the nature of disasters. Another interesting approach in this context was found in the work of Graham and Oswald (2010) who attempted to model psychological resilience in economics literature by discussing the implications of hedonic capital on resilience and hedonic adaptation. From the above discussion, it may be affirmed that resilience studies have now extended to a variety of samples and gained popularity across the globe; unlike even a decade earlier when most research publications were from America and focused on American samples, probably as it was the birthplace of positive psychology. In the present times, it is encouraging to find evidence of resilience research in Asian countries including Hong Kong, China, Japan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India.

Resilience Research in India

Although resilience research is still in its initial stage, the phenomena of individuals showing remarkable recovery and sometimes high levels of functioning, despite been born into underprivileged backgrounds has been a recurrent theme of mythological tales, folklore, films, songs and literature in India. Prior to the positive psychology movement, studies that were conducted on the aftermath of adversity were largely based on the pathological framework. Later, most research was limited to resilience in the aftermath of natural calamities that struck India during that time such as tsunami and earthquake; while very few concentrated on resilience towards everyday stressors. Currently, there appears to be an urgent requirement for resilience scales for the Indian population. Barring a few measures such as Dash et al. (2006) and Annalakshmi and Abeer’s (2011) Bharathiar University Resilience Scale, many tools used in Indian studies have been constructed as per non-Indian requirements.

In recent times, researchers in India have continued to focus strongly on the children and adolescent population reporting findings such as better mental health among resilient adolescents living in the international Jammu and Kashmir border (Sood et al. 2013), greater level of positive affect and life satisfaction among resilient students (Nath and Pradhan 2012; Singh and Yu 2010), and higher resiliency scores in participants subjected to intervention (Singh and Choubisa 2011). In a novel attempt, Kapur (2013) in the context of resilience among children, suggested the concept of Triguna with special focus on satva and declared it as ‘…the very essence of resilience…’ (p. 263). The author affirms that satva is not only an inherited predisposition to resilience, but can also be developed by the individual. Kapur (2013) suggests that this concept along with Anna Freud’s notion of developmental lines may be used in acquiring competencies that inspire effective functioning in times of adversity. Additionally, Indian researchers have also studied characteristics such as exhibition, impulsivity and understanding (Annalakshmi 2008), religious orientation (Annalakshmi and Abeer 2011; Bhushan 2010) and internal locus of control and positive self-concept (Herbert et al. 2013) along with resilience. Resilience has also been examined in the context of psychological symptoms. For example, Bhushan (2010) reported that religiosity appeared to enhance the effect of resilience in dealing with mental health issues among the Indian geriatric population. In studying adolescents, Deb and Arora (2011) found that academically resilient males reported better mental health than their less resilient counterparts; however, among females, no significant difference was reported in mental health of high and low resilience groups. Furthermore, Herbert et al’s (2013) study on individuals with a parent diagnosed with schizophrenia found that coping mechanisms such as acceptance, religiosity and problem solving were used more by resilient adults as compared to less resilient participants. The most frequently reported protective factor in this study was a supportive relationship. Other studies focusing on relationships and resilience have been conducted, such as Harakraj’s (2005) study on loss of a family member, and Ganth et al. (2013) investigation on infertility issues among couples. While the former study revealed open communication between family members, religion, support of relatives and friends, respect and trust between family members among the most frequently reported resiliency factors, the latter reported resilience and status of infertility as significant predictors of marital satisfaction. However, limited research was found in the area of organizational behaviour. Shahnawaz and Jafri’s (2009) study revealed that public and private sector employees differed from each other in terms of all three dimensions of psychological capital, except resiliency. More recently, Arora and Rangnekar (2014) reported that career mentoring did not have any significant influence on career resilience despite psychosocial mentoring being a significant predictor of career resilience. This review depicts that resilience research is gradually expanding to different adversities as well as different samples in India. Kapur (2013) advocates that further exploration in integration and application of Indian and Western concepts in interpreting the complexity of resilience could help in understanding resilience holistically, both as theory and practice.

Application of Findings from Resilience Research

Despite the fact that resilience research has progressed considerably over the years, investigations aimed at discovering resilience factors have generally been more popular than intervention studies. Intervention studies have targeted young people (Annalakshmi and Abeer 2011; Grotberg 1999; Singh and Choubisa 2011), couples in troubled marriages (Ganth 2013) and sportspersons (Fletcher and Sarkar 2012) among others; however, certain populations and many specific adversities are yet to be focused upon.

Rees et al. (2015) observe that interventions often tend to adopt an over-inclusive approach, whereby several different strategies and techniques are included in the hope that something will be effective. The gap between intervention goals and empirical data supporting their efficacy may be attributed to differences in recipients’ cultural values and dispositions in coping with stress, potential to increase stigma associated with mental health issues, and tendency to overestimate one’s strengths or undermine the stressors perceived (Bonanno et al. 2011). Rees et al. (2015) suggest that the most powerful interventions will need to be drawn from theory and that the necessary groundwork needs to occur before meaningful interventions can be devised. Therefore, one must be careful in advocating a particular treatment unless its effectiveness has been independently evaluated (Werner 2005); for strategies that have proven successful in one context may not work in another. While most interventions involve training on awareness and practice of established positive psychology techniques, Masten (2001) recommends the use of risk-focused, asset-focused and process-focused strategies that may be customized as per the context.

Implications and Directions for Future Research

Although a wide array of literature is available on resilience studies, some areas demand more exploration. Researchers need to focus on specific adversities and samples, reassess measurement techniques and consider socio-cultural factors in interpretation of findings. In the context of samples under study, Bonanno et al. (2015) observe that ‘the most complete body of evidence is available on individual psychological resilience in children and adults’ and in ‘contrast, the research on psychological resilience in families and communities is far more limited’ (p. 139). Hence, it is recommended that efforts must be made to extend application widely across individual, family and community levels. At the individual level, researchers should consider not only specific adversities and resilience factors but also emerging trends including socio-cultural and technological phenomena which have influenced lifestyles as well personality characteristics. New age men, women and adolescents, for instance, may not react to adversities and display positive adaptation in the same manner that earlier generations did. At the family and community levels, there should be focus not only on traditional cultural elements but also on the unique characteristics of groups that are operative in specific adversities.

Considering samples of Indian investigations, it may be observed that resilience among children, adolescents and specific communities such as survivors of earthquake, floods and physical and mental illness have been explored to a reasonable extent. However, resilience among the geriatric population and at the workplace appears to have been largely overlooked by resilience researchers in India. Workplace resilience is a crucial area, not only because the employed people invest a considerable amount of time and energy at their workplace but also because global economic recession has a powerful effect on many companies and families (van Breda 2011). Rees et al. (2015) specifically point towards the absence of a model of individual workforce resilience that enables direct testing of the relationship between resilience and similar overlapping constructs such as self-efficacy. Possible correlates, antecedents and consequences of career resilience must be researched (Arora and Rangnekar 2014) as well.

With regard to adversities, it has been observed that while natural calamities such as war and everyday life situations such as academic challenges have received sufficient attention from resilience researchers, there is a range of everyday stressors such as failure in relationships and stress at work that need more exploration. Similarly, further studies on resilience during illness and bereavement should be conducted. Participants in Mazulyte et al. (2014) reported that the most common traumatic event was the sudden, unexpected death of someone close. Hence, such life events which are deeply hurtful and unfortunately common should be considered priority areas for resilience research.

Resilience researchers have identified numerous distinct protective factors both internal and external over the years. However, it is also important to explore the interactive effect of these variables. Such outcome is depicted in Lowe et al. (2015) study on New York residents where both individual and community-level resources operated in tandem to shape resilience after hurricane Sandy. Similarly, many studies reveal sample characteristics that predict resilience; however, the underlying mechanisms are often left undetected. Sustained efforts are required in order to discover the process of interplay of personal and environmental resources during times of adversity among different populations.

Contradictory findings have been reported in the area of mental health of resilient individuals; and gender and resilience. Conner’s (1992) definition of resilience as the capacity to absorb high levels of change while displaying minimal dysfunctional behaviour reflects that one does pay a price for showing resilience in certain areas of life. Those who display positive external adaptation may be internalizing their symptoms and thereby displaying what is referred to as apparent resilience or invulnerability (Luthar 1991). Thus, more detailed investigation is required in understanding how resilience in one area is carried on to other domains including mental health. Yet another area in which inconsistent findings have been reported is that of gender and resilience. While gender has been identified as a crucial aspect of resilience by highly regarded pioneers of resiliency research (Rutter 1987; Werner and Smith 1982), surprisingly, gender difference has rarely been the focus of resilience studies (Morales 2008). While it has been suggested that resilience may not be a function of gender after all and that males and females were equally likely to be resilient (Collishaw et al. 2007), it is also likely that gender differences in resilience change overtime (Sun and Stewart 2007). Petrowski et al. (2014) suggest that longitudinal data would be useful to draw conclusions on the gender-specific development of resilience.

With regard to assessment of resilience, a lot is yet to be accomplished. It has been observed that most studies have depended on self-reports of resilience. Efforts must be made to incorporate other tools of assessment including peer reports and biological measures; that can be used together to provide more conclusive evidence. Furthermore, since resilience is a dynamic phenomenon, longitudinal studies are required to track resilience outcomes overtime. Longitudinal data may be also useful in tracing the effect of interventions. Malhi (2012) observes that one of the major gaps in literature lies in assessment of resilient children. Since most methods currently being used have been modelled after adult stress inventories and completely disregard the child’s perspective, Malhi insists that techniques that take into consideration the child’s interpretations are required, as children possibly use different criteria than adults to define and assess risk. Furthermore, in understanding the subjective experience of resilience, it is important for future researches to focus more on examining cultural influences that impact individuals and societies. An example from Makkawi’s (2012) qualitative exploratory study on 15 purposefully selected Palestinian female students may be cited in this regard where family support, female segregated schools, supportive female teachers, and resilient personal characteristics were cited as protective factors in relation to academic resilience. A few of these features would probably not function as protective factors if the study was to be replicated in a Westernized society. This emphasizes that cultural aspects play a vital role in the development of resilient traits. While larger samples in quantitative studies may lead us to more reliable results, unique features of the sample may be lost in this endeavour. Hence, qualitative methods may be required to understand the subtleties of the resilience process that are governed by unique socio-cultural contexts.

Researchers also recommend that resilience interventions be developed for different kinds of adversities and on different populations. For example, resilience interventions for certain occupational groups such as those working in palliative care settings where rates of compassion fatigue and burnout are high, (Rees et al. 2015) are vital concerns for resilience researchers. Additionally, researchers have expressed skepticism about the application of intervention techniques in resilience. While Greenberg (2006) points to the lack of integration of intervention strategies with findings in neuroscience, Jenson and Fraser (2011) point to the inconsistency of efforts to systematically apply the policies among vulnerable populations. This argument is supported by Hanewald (2011) who on the basis of a review of at-risk and resilient children reported a lack of evidence about the effectiveness of intervention programmes, despite the dedication of vast resources towards their implementation. Since, the definition of resilience varies according to the sample, setting, and variables under study (Ahern 2006) and the ways in which adversity is conceptualized at different stages of the lifespan and in relation to different groups of people is different (Daniel 2010), it is evident that without precise knowledge of these specifications, not only are interventions hampered but the understanding of the phenomena is also limited (Arrington and Wilson 2000). For example, Rajkumar et al. (2008) observed that survivors of the Tsunami valued their unique individual, social and spiritual coping strategies more than formal mental health services; hence they recommend that post-disaster interventions should be aimed more towards strengthening prevailing community coping strategies. In support, Ungar (2013) cites that in many cases, young people’s resilience is the result of their quality engagement with adults more than a personal trait. The socio-ecological understanding of resilience avoids blaming young people who resort to maladaptive behaviour to survive and sets the onus on their families, schools and communities to make relationships with adults available that determines children’s success. Rees et al. (2015) add that since resilience is a multidimensional construct, development of interventions aimed at enhancing individual resilience in the workplace would require more in-depth research information, for instance, on both stable traits such as neuroticism as well as more malleable intrapersonal factors including coping style. Additionally, future interventions could incorporate the principles of yoga, meditation, lifestyle changes that are expected to bring about changes in the self (Kapur 2013). O’Dougherty Wright et al. (2013) suggest that future research must aim to recognize conditions under which interventions may and may not work, identify the most cost-effective targets and timing for interventions, and explore natural reparative processes as well. Finally, in terms of the objectives of future studies, Shastri (2013) recommends that resilience research should not only detect ‘at-risk’ sample at a national, community or individual level; but should also identify the specific characteristics of these groups or individuals. This will be helpful in prevention of risk, intervention and policymaking.

In summary, it may be posited that further work must be continued with the aim of understanding how multiple levels of influence operate synergistically and how best biological, psychological, interpersonal, and cultural levels of analysis can be incorporated into our research and models for clinical intervention specifically among the most vulnerable children, youth and families in our communities (O’Dougherty Wright et al. 2013).

Diverse study designs and methodology restricts the cross-applicability of findings and makes definitive generalizations difficult ((Siriwardhana et al. 2014), therefore, resilience researchers from diverse backgrounds must join forces to maximize the utilization of findings obtained from different studies. Formation of resilience research organizations such as the recently established ‘Resilio’, will promote research and facilitate exchange of information, finally contributing towards building a resilient community. Additionally, speedy translation of findings from research into policy and practice is necessary.

Conclusion

Although the phenomena of resilience has been comprehended to a great extent, a lot still needs to be achieved in terms of application of this knowledge. Life is replete with instances of challenging situations that may not necessarily be physically life threatening or psychologically intimidating. Even routine events both positive and negative, such as being offered a new job, being reciprocated in love, or losing an emotionally valuable possession, could all be disruptive as they represent change. Although challenges do not always turn out to be catastrophic; accumulation of these relatively minor stressors might render the individual vulnerable towards other apparently trivial occurrences. Masten’s (2001) reference to resilience as ordinary magic, stems from the observation that everyone has the capacity for it. It is thus, important for individuals to be aware of the protective systems in their lives by practicing resilient responses even in seemingly ordinary conditions. This will help to overcome unforeseen situations in life and to flourish under such challenges.