Page 246 - Biobehavioral Resilence to Stress

Resilience and Personality 223

In one of the few prospective studies of adult resilience, Saigh (1988) meas-
ured adjustment among Lebanese university students before and aft er they
had been exposed to intense and prolonged aerial bombardment. Although
most students showed signs of acute distress immediately after the bombing,

almost all had returned to baseline levels of function within 1 month aft er the
bombing. Unfortunately, the very small sample size used in this study (n = 12)
severely limits the generalizability of its fi ndings.
Over the past decade, several prospective and longitudinal studies have
been published, which have made it possible to begin mapping the char-
acteristics of adults who demonstrate resilience in the aft ermath of PTEs.
Much of our current knowledge base stems from studies of bereavement

after the death of a spouse, child, or life partner (Bonanno, Keltner, Holen
& Horowitz, 1995; Bonanno et al., 2005; Bonanno, Wortman et al., 2002;
Bonanno, Wortman & Nesse, 2004; Bonanno, Znoj, Siddique & Horowitz,
1999; Boerner, Wortman & Bonanno, 2005). However, more recent studies
also document the prevalence of resilience following potentially more trau-
matic events such as the September 11th terrorist attack in New York City
(Bonanno et al., 2006; Bonanno, Rennicke & Dekel, 2005). Th is research has

produced findings that not only support many of the ideas originally pro-
posed by developmental researchers, but that also add some important new
insights about the characteristics and the correlates of resilience.
In particular, more recent research has demonstrated that resilience to
trauma and recovery from trauma can be mapped as discrete and empiri-
cally separable outcome trajectories (Bonanno, 2004, 2005b). Th ese dis-
tinct trajectories were evidenced, for example, in the aft ermath of spousal
bereavement (e.g., Bonanno, Wortman et al., 2002) and among individuals
who had experienced high levels of exposure to terrorist attack (Bonanno
et al., 2005). In these studies, recovery from trauma was operationally defi ned
as initially moderate to severe levels of psychological sequelae and signifi cant
disruptions in daily functioning that abate gradually over the course of many
months before returning to baseline, pretrauma levels. By contrast, resilience

was defined as either the absence of symptoms or the presence of a few mild,
transient symptoms (e.g., several weeks of variability in negative aff ect, dif-
ficulty in concentrating, or sleeplessness) in conjunction with a relatively sta-

ble level of healthy adjustment over time.

Resilience Is Common

The traditional assumption that resilience is a rare phenomenon implies
that only individuals who have exceptional mental or emotional health
can be resilient to extreme adversity. However, recent empirical research
indicates that resilience actually constitutes the most frequently observed
outcome. For example, in a recent bereavement study, resilience to loss

1/22/2008 6:34:30 PM
CRC_71777_Ch009.indd 223 1/22/2008 6:34:30 PM
CRC_71777_Ch009.indd 223