Psychological resilience

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote about his experience in the Soviet gulags in his book The Gulag Archipelago.

Psychological resilience according to the American Psychological Association "is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands."

Factors that contribute to how well people adapt to adversities

Factors that contribute to how well people adapt to adversities are:

- A growth mindset thrives on challenge. The Harvard Business School points out that a growth mindset helps entrepreneurs develop resilience because "When challenges, setbacks, and failures inevitably arise, your business’s survival depends on your ability to persevere and learn from difficult situations." See: Growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset

- The ways in which individuals view and engage with the world. See: Positive thinking and Growth mindset and Problem solving and Mental toughness and Grit (personality trait) and Achievement orientation

- The availability and quality of social resources.

- Specific coping strategies. See: Self-talk

Dr. Al Siebert on resilience

Dr. Al Siebert (January 21, 1934 - June 25, 2009) was an American author and educator. He was best known for his research on psychological resilience and the inner nature of highly resilient survivors.

Siebert was a former paratrooper wrote the book The Survivor Personality: Why Some People are Stronger, Smarter, and More Skillful at Handling Life’s Difficulties…and How You Can Be, Too. Siebert offers his findings from autobiographies and hundreds of interviews. He interviewed survivors of adversity such as war, cancer, abuse, job loss, and addictions.

A book summary of his book can be found at: Book Summary: The Survivor Personality.

Article by Al Siebert:

• The Resiliency Advantage by Al Siebert, PhD

Videos:

• Al Siebert - Resiliency

Books:

• The Resiliency Advantage by Al Siebert
• Survivor Personality: Why Some People Are Stronger, Smarter, and More Skillful atHandling Life's Diffi culties...and How You Can Be, Too by Al Siebert

Beyond mere resilience: Thriving in adversity and being antifragile

• Beyond Resilience: On Becoming Antifragile

Book

• Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Paul Stoltz, Ph.D and the adversity quotient

Paul Stoltz, Ph.D "developed the Adversity Quotient (AQ) to test the unconscious pattern of how people respond to adversity, and show how to increase it and, thereby, help individuals become valuable at work."

• Adversity Quotient Test overview
• Book Review: Adversity Quotient by Paul G Stoltz
• Adversity Quotient test

Videos:

• Adversity Quotient® by Dr. Paul G. Stoltz
• Adversity Quotient | How to Build Resilience and Overcome Adversity

Anti-fragility in psychology and personal development

Hercules battling a hydra.

See also: Anti-fragility

Anti-fragility is a property of systems/beings in which they increase in capability and resilience to thrive as a result of stressors, pressure, attacks, shocks, volatility, and temporary mistakes/failures.

The term anti-fragility is often used in relation to psychology and personal development and other fields.

Mental toughness

“The 3 key components for success are as follows: psychological preparedness, physical conditioning, mental toughness.”- Chuck Norris

See also: Mental toughness

According to the company Mental Toughness Partners:

“

Mental Toughness is a personality trait that determines your ability to perform consistently under stress and pressure, and is closely related to qualities such as character, resilience, grit and perseverance. Peter Clough, Professor of Applied Psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University and a pioneer on research into Mental Toughness further describes a mentally tough person as “someone who is comfortable in their own skin, can take whatever comes along in their stride and mostly enjoy the challenge”.

”

Mental toughness is often referred to relative to sports and work performance and it is a predictor of success in sports, the workplace and education. Mental toughness is estimated to account for up to 25% variation in performance according to research carried out by Professor Peter Clough and his colleagues (See: MTQ mental toughness assessments). In the workplace, salespeople have high levels of mental toughness compared to other workers.

Journal articles

See also: Social rejection

• Psychological resilience: Predictors and measurement among Israel Defense Force combat officer candidates, Military Psychology: The Official Journal of the Division of Military Psychology, American Psychological Association. 2023 Nov-Dec;35(6):493-506. doi: 10.1080/08995605.2022.2127986. Epub 2022 Sep 30.
• Psychological Resilience: An Affect-Regulation Framework, Annual Review of Psychology. 2023 Jan 18:74:547-576. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-020122-041854. Epub 2022 Sep 14.
• Resilience in Health and Illness, Psychiatria Danubina. 2020 Sep;32(Suppl 2):226-232.
• Mood and neural responses to social rejection do not seem to be altered in resilient adolescents with a history of adversity, Development and Psychopathology. 2020 May;32(2):411-423. doi: 10.1017/S0954579419000178.
• Psychological Resilience as an Emergent Characteristic for Well-Being: A Pragmatic View, Gerontology. 2020;66(5):476-483. doi: 10.1159/000509210. Epub 2020 Aug 12.

External links

Videos:

• Resiliency - playlist
• Finding meaning in difficult times (Interview with Dr. Viktor Frankl) - Decision/action/freedom/responsibility; Despair = Suffering - Meaning. Meaning - For what purpose is this happening? Ultimate meaning/theology.
• What Makes a Survivor? by Lawrence Gonzalez

See also

• Mental toughness
• Agency (psychology)
• Will (psychology)
• Grit (personality trait)
• Self-regulation
• Achievement orientation
• Self-motivation
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

External links

• How Resilience Helps You Cope With Life's Challenges, VeryWellMind. com

• Adversity quotient/efficacy/studies

• Improving adversity quotient and adversity quotient test

• Adversity advantage (harnessing adversity for motivation/character development instead of merely trying to cope with it)

Videos:

• The Power of Resilience, Harvard Medical School
• What is relience, Dr. Todd Grande
• Mental health and resilience - the secrets of inner strength (Documentary)
• 10 Ways to Build and Develop Resilience