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238 Biobehavioral Resilience to Stress

a constructive way to frustrating situations (Block & Martin, 1955; Funder
& Block, 1989). Block (1982) also observed that adults who are high in ego
control are well-organized, goal-oriented, and tend to inhibit their emotions.
For adults, ego control is also associated with avoidant behavior and diffi -
culty tolerating ambiguity. By contrast, individuals who have low levels of
ego control tend to be more spontaneous and express their feelings openly
and directly to other people (Block, 2002; Letzring, Block & Funder, 2005).
This tendency to experience and express a wide range of emotions comes

at the cost of higher distractibility and low impulse control, which may in
turn increase the vulnerability of low-ego control individuals to maladap-
tive behavior such as drug use and smoking (Barefoot, Smith, Dahlstrom &
Williams, 1989; Block, Block & Keyes, 1988).
Perhaps most interesting, Block and Block (1980) observed that posi-

tive outcomes were most often achieved by individuals who have a moderate

(versus extreme) level of ego control. Thus, the concept of ego resilience
was proposed to identify individuals who are neither over-controlled nor
under-controlled and who are thought to possess an elastic (fl exible) emo-
tion self-regulatory system that facilitates matching expressive and regula-
tory behaviors to situational demands irrespective of personal disposition
(Block, 1950; Block, 2002; Block, 1951; Block & Block, 1980).
Ego resilience has been associated with several variables and measures of
interest with respect to coping with stress. Block and Kremen (1996) found
that ego resilience predicts positive interpersonal and emotional function,
and a study conducted by Spangler (1997) provided additional support for the

hypothesized relation between ego resilience and flexible coping. Specifi cally,
Spangler observed that ego-resilient subjects had lower levels of physiological
reactivity during a stressful examination and evidenced a more rapid return
to baseline after the exam. More recently, Tugade and Fredrickson (2004)

found that resilient individuals not only were less reactive to a stressful
task but also returned more quickly to baseline levels of emotional arousal.
In a subsequent prospective study, Fredrickson et al. (2003) showed that ego
resilience was associated with better coping in everyday life and better over-
all adjustment (among Midwestern college students) immediately following

the September 11th terrorist attack. Specifically, Fredrickson et al. found
that individuals who scored high on Block’s measure of ego resilience were
less likely to develop depressive symptoms and reported higher levels of life
satisfaction, optimism, and tranquility after 9/11. Fredrickson et al.’s statisti-

cal analyses also showed that positive emotions fully mediated the relation
between ego resilience and positive adjustment. Similarly, findings from lon-

gitudinal studies using nonstudent samples indicate that ego resiliency may
support coping with various challenges confronted across the human life
span (e.g., aging; Klohnen, Vandewater & Young, 1996) as well as with more
traumatic events such as physical abuse (Flores, Rogosch & Cicchetti, 2005).

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