Review of Literature
2.6 Resilience
in the way a person perceives and reacts to a situation, particularly a stressful one. Since, Military is a physically and psychologically demanding job, a soldier’s personality will be crucial in deciding how satisfied and meaningful he perceives his life to be. Hence Personality as a variable, which has been unexplored in this context, has been included in this current study.
understand the reason why some individuals are able to withstand – or even thrive on – the pressure they experience in their lives. Over the past two decades psychologists understanding of human functioning in stressful situations has developed rapidly and resilience has been examined across a range of contexts like business organizations (Riolli & Savicki, 2003), education (Gu & Day, 2007), military (Palmer, 2008), sport performance (Galli & Vealey, 2008), and communities (Brennan, 2008).
Most definitions of resilience are based around two core concepts namely: adversity and positive adaptation. Regarding the term adversity, Luthar and Cicchetti (2000) stated that adversity
‘‘typically encompasses negative life circumstances that are known to be statistically associated with adjustment difficulties’’ (p. 858). This approach employs a definition of adversity which is closely associated with the notion of risk, where as other researchers define adversity as any hardship and suffering linked to difficulty, misfortune, or trauma (Jackson, Firtko, &
Edenborough, 2007). As guest editors of a special edition of the Journal of Personality on
‘‘Resilience in Common Life,’’ Davis, Luecken and Lemery-Chalfant (2009b) proposed that ‘‘for most of us, the adversities we encounter do not constitute major disasters but rather are more modest disruptions that are embedded in our everyday lives’’ (p.1638). Davydov et al. (2010) speculate that resilience mechanisms may differ in relation to contextual severity, ranging from resilience against regular every day hassles like work stress (i.e., mild adversity) to resilience against occasional extensive stress such as bereavement (i.e., strong adversity). Thus, as Luthar et al. (2000) emphasized, it is important that researchers should clearly outline their definition of adversity and provide a reasonable explanation for its use. A more fundamental issue in this area of resilience research is the negative connotations attached with the term ‘‘adversity’’ (Wilson &
Agaibi, 2005; Vanderbilt-Adriance & Shaw, 2008). As noted above, existing definitions of
adversity associate negative circumstances with negative consequences or, by the use of high risk- related terminology, focus on statistically significant predictors of maladjustment. However positive life events that are not typically associated with a higher probability of undesirable outcomes can also be relevant in defining resilience. For example, a job promotion, which is very unlikely to be labeled as an adversity will require resilience characteristics in positively adapting to the new and unique demands inherent to the role. Similarly, newlywed couples entering a marriage, which again is unlikely to be classified as a risk event, are required to display a range of relationship resources (for example problem-solving and support-seeking behaviors) to work their way through marital stressors (Neff & Broady, 2011). Moreover, when adversity is defined as an event that predicts maladjustment it precludes the inclusion of many ongoing daily stressors under the framework of resilience, despite a growing body of evidence which suggests to the contrary (Davis, 2009a; Neff & Broady, 2011).
Positive adaptation has been defined as ‘‘behaviorally manifested social competence, or success at meeting stage-salient developmental tasks’’(Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000, p. 858) or ‘‘symptoms related to internal well-being’’ (Masten & Obradovic´,2006, p. 15). Luthar et al (2006) assert that the indicators used to represent this concept must be appropriate to the adversity examined in terms of the domain being assessed and the stringency of criteria that is used. For example, for school children an indicator of positive adaptation might be academic achievement, whereas for military personnel a more appropriate indicator would be the absence of psychiatric symptoms. As far as the stringency of the criteria is concerned, the nature of the adversity should determine whether an individual needs to demonstrate excellent or average levels of competence. More specifically, for an individual exposed to a serious life adversity, for example terrorist attacks, it is appropriate to define competence in terms of the absence of psychiatric diagnoses rather than evidence of
excellent functioning. An important, yet often overlooked, issue when examining positive adaptation is the sociocultural context in which an individual operates (Clauss-Ehlers, 2008;
Mahoney & Bergman, 2002; Waller, 2001). Ungar and Lienberg (2011) argued that resilience research has predominantly defined positive adaptation from a Western psychological perspective with an emphasis on individual and relational capacities, such as academic success and healthy relationships. According to them these outcomes lack sensitivity to cultural factors that contextualize how resilience is defined by different populations and manifested in different practices. This argument is supported by Mahoney and Bergman (2002) who state that the specific sociocultural conditions in which an individual functions must be considered when examining competence, and that ‘‘failing to do so may lead to a view of positive adaptation as a static phenomenon with relevance to only a minority of persons in select circumstances’’ (p. 212).
In a study by Souri and Hasanirad (2011) where four hundred fourteen students of medicine (213 male and 191 female) were selected using cluster sampling and were required to fill up the Ryff Scale of Psychological Well-Being (RSPWB), Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD -RISC), and Scheier and Carver’s Life Orientation Test (LOT). The results indicated that resilience was a predictor of psychological well-being, and optimism played a minor mediation role in the relationship between resilience and psychological well-being. Carver, Scheier, and Segerstrom (2010) and Miller et al. (2010) found similar results in their studies as well. Ryff and Singer (2003) argued that resilient individuals were generally capable to maintain their physical and psychological health and had the ability to recover more quickly from stressful events. This strengthened the construct of resilience which was defined as “a personality characteristic that moderates the negative effects of stress and promotes adaptation” (Wagnild & Young, 1993) and as “the ability to restore or maintain internal or external equilibrium under significant threat by
means of human activities including thought and action” (Smith & Carlson, 1997). Sagone and De Caroli (2013) in their study found that the more the middle adolescents experienced high levels of resilience, the more they felt able to cope with novelty in various areas of human functioning and, especially in scholastic context thereby reducing the possible risk of maladaptive outcomes.
Picardi et al (2012) found that PWB was positively correlated with dispositional resilience (measured using the three factors of commitment, control, and challenge), except for the dimension of autonomy. The results of a study by Sagone and Caroli (2014) showed positive relationships between Psychological well-being (environmental mastery, personal growth, and self-acceptance) and resilience. The more the adolescents were able to choose contexts suitable to personal needs, to see themselves as growing and expanding, and to perceive themselves as self-satisfied, the more they were resilient. Boys expressed a greater well -being (environmental mastery and self- acceptance) than girls and late adolescents showed a greater well-being (personal growth and purpose in life) than middle ones. Resilient youth tend to have strong social skills and interpersonal communication (Hollister-Wagner et al., 2001; Howard & Johnson, 2000; Luthar & Zigler, 1991;
Smith & Carlson, 1997; Werner, 1995). Also evident are humour, empathy, flexibility, and an easygoing temperament, all of which are likely to enhance sociability (Fraser, Galinsky, &
Richman, 1999; Levine, 2009; Richardson, 2002; Rutter, 1985).
Studies have shown resilience to be positively correlated with greater social engagement, higher optimism, stronger grip strength, and functional independence (Hardy, Concato & Gill, 2004;
Lamond & Proverbs, 2009; Wagnild, 2003; Wells, 2009). Conversely, resilience has also been found to be negatively correlated with poor mental and physical health conditions, such as increased depressive symptomatology, post-traumatic stress disorder, and physical disability (Burns & Anstey, 2010; Connor, Davidson, & Lee, 2003; Hardy, Concato & Gill, 2004; Mehta et
al., 2008). Supportive results were reported by Schure, Odden and Goins in 2013 where it was revealed revealed that higher levels of resilience were associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms, chronic pain and with higher levels of mental and physical health. In a study of well- being of managers in work organizations by Srivastava (2009), resilience was one of the many individual factors responsible for the psychological well-being at the workplace among police personnel. Resilience was found to be significantly positively correlated to psychological well- being, life satisfaction, social well being and altruism.
Resilience as a variable finds inclusion in this study because a soldier’s life is challenging both at a personal and professional level. It is very important thus for the soldier to rise up and move beyond the hardships to be able to do justice to a very demanding job and still be able to maintain a level of subjective and psychological well-being. The current literature states a relationship between resilience and well-being. Due to a lack of evidence with regard to the Indian soldiers, this study will explore this relationship further.