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1 | R E S I L I E N C E : P e r s o n a l i t y i n A d v e r s i t y
RESILIENCE: Personality in Adversity
Marie Franz A. Gavino
Introduction
Religious people would say we are all equal in the eyes of God then we are also equal in
the lashes of adversities in life. There are many forms of adversities in life; it could be a painful
loss of a loved one or even precious properties, traumatic event that leaves a lifetime mark in
one’s memory or events which terrified the person because of its near-death experience. No
particular group of people, specific person in the society or even an innocent child can escape the
painful side of life. Despite of this, most individuals in the world tend to manage, live with it and
continue their lives after it. Probably, we humans have our natural way of coping in life.
There are different studies (Bonanno, 2008; Masten, 2001; Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013:
Luthar et al., 2000) devoted in explaining the ability of the person to manage adversity by
portraying the same functions in different aspects of life (e.g. relationships, career, etc.) even
after a distressing event and be able to surpass other hitches that life has to offer them which they
call as Resilience. However, the study of resilience is various that a lot of authors defined it in
different ways. Nonetheless, in the review made by Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013 resilience must be
defined not only by its function (process, outcome or trait) but also the adversity that it is pair up.
From their reviews, adversity as defined by different authors is consists of difficulties
encountered by people in a daily basis or a major incident that was remarkable due to its impact.
This paper is fervent to explain resilience adopting the idea of Bonanno (2004) as the “ability of
individuals to maintain relatively stable, healthy levels of psychological and physical
functioning, as well as the capacity for generative experiences and positive emotions despite of
being exposed to an isolated and potentially highly disruptive event”. Supporting his concepts, I
believe that individuals may experience negative emotions or portray adverse reactions toward
the event for a mean time but they can still function as individuals just like how they were before
the event to happen. Furthermore, there may be slight changes from some of their views,
behaviors or beliefs but it will not highly bring them a major change in their lives.
In other researches, resilience may be a process (Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990), it may
be a personal quality (Connor & Davidson, 2003) or it may be ability (Bonanno, 2004) in one’s
life. They offered various factors and explanations how resilience developed in a certain
individual. Some mentioned that it is actually seen already to children (Pearson & Hall, 2007),
others gave emphasis in the role of culture (Ungar, 2006) and others identified different
protective factors that are within the environment of a person particularly the child where
development of resilience begins (Gunnestad, 2006: Werner & Smith, 1992). With that, this
paper also aims to explain the different factors that contribute for the occurrence of resilience in
one’s personality. Primarily, it shows how brain structures and its functions, presence of support
group and cultural factors collaborated in order to form a pattern of dispositional traits of a
person having the ability to be resilient. Likewise, this will also provide an explanation for the
specific characteristic adaptation of different coping styles of a resilient person in order to
maintain its stability.
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Role of Brain Structures and Functions
In other theories of personality, nature versus nurture seems to be a major argument to
explain an individual. McAdams and Pals (2006) emphasized that personality will always start
based from the human nature which involves genetics and evolution. They primarily believe that
people tend to have common ground of their needs, adaptations and how they relate to others
based on what is designed to them by their genes. However, LeDoux (2003) used genes as one of
the contributor together with nurturance in shaping the synaptic organization of our brain. These
synapses are wired in our brain that enabled us to define our mental and behavioral functions.
This wiring-up undergo either the process of innate or genetically programmed in our brain the
things that are dangerous dictated by our instincts and the other is through learning from
individual experiences that certain event is terrifying and will put him at risk. This phenomenon
is basically a good start to appreciate the brain structures and their functions towards its reaction
to adversities that leads to resilience of an individual.
From the study made by DeYoung, Hirsh, Shane, Papademetris, Rajeevan & Gray
(2010), personality traits can be able to identify from the different regions of the brain in which
they primarily focused on the Big Five Traits. Their study showed that through measuring the
volume of the brain tissues of certain regions, they were able to find its effect on the personality
traits of the person. They concluded that if the person has larger volume on the certain region of
the brain, its function will appear in the traits. This particularly telling us, that brain has a major
role on how we define ourselves because our behaviors, adaptations and perceptions are coming
from here with the help of other external factors, an example of which is an individual’s
resilience. There are various studies that are mentioning different structures and activities in the
brain that contribute for achieving resilience or stability though aversive events are happening.
As I have mentioned, genetic make-up of a person basically plays an important role for
the formation of structures of our brain which is acquired from our parents. But beyond the genes
that they have given to us, these primary caregivers take a big part as well in defining who we
are in relation with the development of our brain. From the article of Siegel (2001) adopting the
principles of Interpersonal Neurobiology, the development of our brain depends not only from
the genes but also to the interpersonal relationships that we have as we grow. The affection that
these people give during our early development contributes on how we think and react to various
situations. We humans have the left and right hemispheres of our brain which possess distinct
functions. The left hemisphere with an “interpreter” function deals more with logical reasoning
and trying to arrive at explanations of things but it is not good at regulating the body as well as
detecting emotions (Siegel, 2001). However, these inadequacies are supplemented by the right
hemisphere of our brain which infants early developed (Siegel, 2001: Chiron, Jambaque, Nabbot,
Lounes, Syrota, & Dulac, 1997) with the help of the primary caregivers. An area in our right
hemisphere within the prefrontal cortex like orbitofrontal region is responsible for the
autobiographical memory as well as regulation of the body and emotions. The primary caregivers
played an important role in nurturing this region through healthy nonverbal interactions like
body gestures, physical affection and facial expression because it has effect to its function when
it is impaired most especially on the resilience of the person when he grows up. Siegel (2001)
also mentioned that if this is impaired, the individual will find it difficult to process
overwhelming situations and they have tendency to feel “altered states” when they experience
aversive situations. The state in which the person tends to react impulsively or irrational in the
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face of adversity is called lower-mode states (Siegel, 2001: Siegel 1999) which is the effect of
impairment due to caregivers who gave frightening and unhealthy interaction to the child or
when they experience severe stress at the early development (Siegel, 2001: DeBellis et al., 1999).
This is supported by the study of DeYoung et al., (2010) which they found out in the region of
dorsomedial prefrontal cortex of individuals who have smaller volume on this part finds it
difficult to regulate oneself and more inclined with negative self-evaluation.
Contrariwise, individuals who have well-functioning right hemisphere their orbitofrontal
cortex and prefrontal cortex tend to have an integrative process which allows the person to
exhibit response flexibility. This refers to the ability of the brain to adapt to the changes that
internal and external environment bring which reflects to the behavior and cognitive process of
the person. In addition, the orbitofrontal region which is also linked to other important areas of
the brain such as associational cortex, limbic circuits, and brain stem areas will allow the person
to experience higher-mode states which is more inclined with processing emotions and making
rational thoughts and behavior (Siegel, 2001). Lastly, good interaction with caregivers also
allows the child to have a good emotional communication with them which enables him to learn
how to regulate one’s emotions in the brain. This emotion regulation will be used by the person
to develop cognitive processes like cognitive appraisal wherein he is able to identify the
stressors from the environment or he is able to grasp meaning from what is currently happening
to him which highly affects the resilience to an adversity.
Our environment and its different factors can make and break us through the people who
helped for the healthy formation of our brain that allow us to regulate ourselves but this is also
the one who give stressors and difficulties that challenge our well-being. However, due to the
structures of our brain and its impressive functions we are still able to adapt in different ways.
Karatsoreos & McEwen (2013) explained allostasis which is the physiological changes in the
brain that occur in response to environmental perturbations. This is the one that detects danger
and allow the brain to make active intervention in order to adapt. In this way, the individual will
already generate coping strategies to surpass environment perturbations. According to their
study, if an individual develops new experiences it will lead to adaptive plasticity. Since our
brain is capable of learning there are changes in the brain that happens when we acquire new
experience, memory or learning and that is called neuroplasticity (Buonomano & Merzenich,
1998). In this way, instead of withdrawing oneself as fear response, the individual make certain
ways to deal with adversity and return to one’s functioning again.
Though there are studies which identified the personality of the person through the
structures of our brain, we cannot merely say that brain alone is responsible for its formation.
The activities of the different parts of the brain specifically the left and right hemisphere are
different from one another but we are aiming for its balance in order to develop resilience. We
need the function of left hemisphere being logical and providing explanations but we also need
the function of the right hemisphere for the regulation of our body and emotions with the help of
the different factors of the environment: support group and our culture.
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Support Group
Interpersonal relationships play a major role for the resilience of a person due to its
collaboration in the formation and the development of the brain since infancy (Siegel, 2001) and
they are the reason for the existence of the culture. These interpersonal relationships of the
person are considered to be the support group of an individual that enables him to maintain
stability from adversities. Support group in this paper is not particularly focusing on immediate
family members only instead; it also reaches the members of the community, peers, non-family
caregivers and other people who take part for the individuality of the person. I do believe that
resilience takes place with the help coming from the support group which is also composed of
people who are not genetically related to the individual.
Incorporating the principles of Interpersonal Theory of Sullivan, he believed that “people
develop their personality within a social context and without other people; they would have no
personality” (Sullivan, 1953). In discussing his concepts, he did not focus on a certain group of
people whom the individual interacts instead, he inculcate the developmental stages of the person
and expound the role of support group in each stage. The developmental stages are: infancy,
childhood, juvenile era, preadolescence, early adolescence, late adolescence and adulthood.
Basically the role of the parents most especially the mother brings a major impact on
stages of infancy and childhood. This support group is included in the protective factor of an
individual to develop resilience (Gunnestad, 2006). According to Sullivan (1953), stage of
infancy is crucial because the infant cannot communicate the source of his anxiety and the
mother can also pass the anxiety to the child due to failure in discerning the need of the child
(e.g. forcing to feed the child though he is not hungry or failure to know the source of irritability
of the child). From the paper made by Masten (2001), even years before there are various studies
that investigate resilience of children whose upbringing is under the threat of disadvantage and
adversity. An example is the children whose family experiences extreme poverty that the general
need for food is limited. In cases like this the child began to learn apathy and somnolent
detachment that allow him to fall asleep despite the hunger. These environment hazards can
result to developmental problems if prolonged in the areas of psychosocial competence,
psychopathology and health. These problems can lead for an individual to develop insecurities to
establish relationships, become high in neuroticism, failure to manage distressing situations or
experience physiological problems. In addition, the interpersonal relationships also influenced
during the formation of the cognitive process of the child like understanding the situation,
identifying stressors and achieve self-regulation because the primary caregivers show to the child
how to do it at the early stage of development (Siegel, 2001). On the other hand, low support
from the significant other can affect the resilience of the individual when he grows up by being
incapable to manage stress and might affect their physiological functioning afterwards (Ozbay
F., Johnson D., Dimoulas E., Morgan C., Charney D. & Southwick S., 2007).
During the stage of childhood, the individual is already preparing himself to interact with
individuals who let him feel safe and will not increase the level of his anxiety (Sullivan, 1953)
particularly their playmates, other significant people or even imaginary friends. However,
parents has still major impact on the person because this is the stage wherein they start to label
behaviors as good or bad from imitating their parents (Sullivan, 1953). Furthermore, various
studies (Pearson J. & Hall D., 2007; Hill M., Stafford, A., Seaman, P., Ross, N. & Daniel, B.,
2007) also show that providing adequate and consistent role model is a big responsibility for the
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parents to instill resilience because this stage also allow the children to mimic how their primary
caregivers or their parents react to adversities and later on adapt their thinking style and habitual
behaviors when encountering distressing events. They were also the ones who show how the
child can regulate emotions through portraying nonverbal interaction during childhood (Siegel,
2001).
Though Sullivan explained that it is important at the early stage that the child must satisfy
the general needs like tenderness from the mother, experience relief from anxieties which play a
big role to inhibit the person to develop a healthy interpersonal relations; they can still be
misshapen into energy transformations that will help the person to turn these tensions (need and
anxiety) into actions through either interaction with others outside the family, developing
intimacy from other person and establishing self-system (Sullivan, 1953). This is the reason why
in succeeding stages (juvenile era, preadolescence, early adolescence, late adolescence and
adulthood) Sullivan (1953) emphasized that the individual began to easily cope with anxiety,
conflicts and challenges with the help of his meaningful relationships that he established aside
from his family. A study (Hill, M., et al.,: Bowlby, 1969; Clarke and Clarke, 1976; Rutter, 1981)
also identified that though a person experienced adversity during childhood because of
deprivation of warmth inside the house, he is still capable to develop resilience especially when
he is able to find an environment with people who offer warmth, acceptance and support though
they are not genetically related. This could be observed in the school, in an organization or in a
community. From the review of Ozbay et al. (2007) they mentioned those children who were
victims of sexual abuse or physical abuse who were adopted by an organization and sooner
found a family who accepted these children are able to develop resilience because of having the
presence of self-esteem support (that other people can give them value) and appraisal support
(that they have someone they can rely on when they face adversities) showed a very useful
prevention to experience stress and trauma. However, there are still effects which can be seen to
the orphans due to adverse situation that they had which is usually connected on the cognitive
and behavior deficits (Chugani, Behen, Muzik, Juhasz, Naggy & Chuganin, 2001). They often
displayed difficulty in processing information or cognitive performance like mental retardation.
This is supported from the article of Siegel (2001) in which extreme distress is like a toxic that
affects the brain of the person. On the other hand, interventions and healthier support groups
were empowered in order to battle against this deficiency of the children.
These evidences primarily support my claim that presence of support group affects the
development of resilience to an individual and this group does not solely comprise of immediate
family members or people who are genetically related to each other but also the other members
of the community who can manifest and provide warmth, acceptance and support to an
individual.
Culture Orientation
This paper have discussed already the role of what is inside the person (brain structure
and its functions) and what is outside the person (support group) in understanding the personality
of a resilient individual. However, I do believe that culture also plays a big role in the
development of resilience to a person. It is distinct with simply adapting how our primary
caregivers model certain behaviors, thinking styles and self-regulation because modeling is just
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one of the aspects of the culture (Martinez & Oishi 2006: Markus & Kitayama, 1996). Our
culture is composed of systems that people share following a certain standard in perceiving,
interpreting, communicating and dealing with various situations. These systems are shared by
people who belong to a certain geographical location possessing their own shared language
(Martinez & Oishi 2006: Triandis, 1996) which is transmitted in different ways. Having said
that, an individual’s personality is also influenced by the people around him following the
culture they belonged because they all share the same systems. Belonging to a collectivistic and
individualistic culture may illustrate differences and one of which is how we perceive and
manifest resilience in various situations. Though there are few studies showed evidences about
this matter, there are still few which can support this claim.
From the review done by Martinez and Oishi (2006) in explaining the role of culture in
developing personality; they have compared it to a metaphor of a game with players. The players
are the people with different personalities and the game is the culture. The game is set with rules
to follow but the players have their own strategies to play the game, which they can modify, play
according to their own preferences exerting their strengths as long as they will still conform with
the rules. “Culture is a key determinant of what it means to be a person” (Martinez & Oishi
2006: Church, 2000). According to their review, explaining personality before comes from two
approaches: Cultural Approach and Cross-Cultural Approach. Cultural approach primarily
believes that “there is no personality without culture” (Martinez & Oishi 2006: Markus &
Kitayama, 1998) because in this perspective we develop our personality of evaluating, reacting,
forming our dispositions from the culture that is why it cannot be separated to us. This is also the
reason when people study the role of culture to the person, if it involves self-processes the
cultural approach was often used. On the other hand, the cross-cultural approach identifies
personality and culture as two separate entities (Martinez & Oishi 2006: Triandis, 1996). They
primarily focused on explaining characteristic adaptations of the person such as beliefs, values,
goals etc. were developed from how the person live his life. However, researches innovated and
proved that traits and situational predictors exist in all cultures but it varies when the person
belongs to the collectivist or individualist culture.
With that, this paper particularly wanted to delve resilience from the perspective of two
cultural contexts such as collectivist and individualist. An interesting study made by Ungar
(2006) which was participated by youth coming from different countries. They participated in the
International Resilience Project (IRP) wherein they were interviewed and asked situational
problems, their point-of-views and own personal experiences that fall to the concept of
resilience. Result of this study can serve as support to our claim that culture takes part for the
development of resilience but it varies from the perspectives of two cultural orientations. To cite
examples, Ungar gave the same kind of situation which adversity takes place and the two
participants vary from their answers. One relies in own capabilities, showing independence from
her parents and the other is consulting the family for guidance in the decision she needs to make.
Another proposition that he has was how these participants who belong to different culture
identify its influence to their life which resilience takes place. There is an item in which religion
is the topic, the other participants did not give emphasis to its existence but the others show a
relatively high regard to the role of religion in order for them to adapt after an adversity. Lastly,
the results of the study also showed that participants vary on their own perspectives on different
facets of culture such as family dynamics, education and values regardless of their gender but
instead from the cultural orientation they belong.
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Specifically, there were various aspects of individual’s personality that Martinez and
Oishi (2006) mentioned in understanding its relationship to distinct cultures (collectivism and
individualism). The pattern of feelings of a person is one of the important aspects of personality.
According to Suh, Diener, Oishi, & Triandis (1998) frequency of emotions for the collectivist
cultures is not an indicator of life satisfaction compared to individualist cultures (Martinez &
Oishi 2006). They have concluded that there are differences in the flow of emotions of people
from different culture and in relation with resilience, collectivist individuals tend to experience
either own high or low emotions but this is not a big consideration for them to maintain stability
when facing adversity because they are more of relying to interpersonal positive emotions
(Martinez and Oishi, 2006:Kitayama, Markus, and Kurokawa, 2000) which means that they more
value emotions with other people around them. On the other hand, individualist individuals
consider emotions as predictor and interpersonally disengage positive emotions (pride) in order
to achieve life satisfaction or happiness. From here, their resilience is not utmost depends with
other people at the beginning instead, they tend to manage themselves initially regulating their
own personal emotions unlike with collectivist who needs others to regulate themselves.
Another aspect of personality in relation to resilience is thinking style. According to
Martinez and Oishi (2006) collectivist tend to adapt the Confucian way of thinking which is
more holistic and dialectic which affect how they evaluate personal experiences. On the other
hand, Individualists tend to adapt the Western thinking wherein they are more analytic to their
own experiences. This affects their resilience because collectivist cultures tend to see the
situation as a whole considering the problem, the factors as well as the negative and positive
emotions with it. Contrariwise, the individualist cultures focus on the problem alone and
distinguish whether it is with positive or negative emotions. They are more direct and
independent in perceiving things to manage stability but the collectivist is considering the other
aspects of it that is why they tend to consult from other people more often as part of their holistic
view of perceiving things.
Pattern of Dispositional Traits
In this paper, we have discussed the interaction of brain activity, role of support groups
and the involvement of culture to explain the manifestation of resilience to the personality of an
individual. Moreover, the interaction of these three factors allows the occurrence of pattern of
dispositional traits in an individual. As defined by McAdams & Pals (2006), “dispositional traits
are those broad, non-conditional, decontextualized, generally linear and bipolar and implicitly
comparative dimensions of human individuality”. These traits are usually unchangeable and
serve as the foundation of how the person deal with situations, engage in an environment and
interact in the society. In this theory, a resilient individual possess a pattern of traits that allow
him to develop and maintain stability in an encounter to an adversity. Adopting the Big Five of
Warren Norman (1963), different studies also show that these pattern of traits are present to an
individual who manifests resilience. However, it also varies from the degree of its influence.
Extraversion (versus Introversion)
According to the review of Lamb (2009) “extroversion includes the outward turning of
psychic energy toward the external world” (De Raad, 2000). These are the individuals who exert
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more energy coming from social context, excitement towards physical activities, outgoing and
talkative (Lamb, 2009: John & Srivastava, 1999). Various studies (Nakaya, Oshio & Kaneko,
2006; Narayanan, 2008; Eschleman & Bowling, 2010) affirm that individuals who are extrovert
tend to show resilience in an adversity primarily because of the energy that they have that
enabled them to have positive outlook to do something about the conflict and also their
motivation coming from the support group that they have. These individuals tend to spend more
time within the society, tendency they are able to have social support for instrumental reason
(Burke, Finch, Paton & Ryan, 2006) which means they can ask others to help them rather than
resolving conflict alone or they like to exhibit their own potentials to other people which increase
their confidence to adapt from adversity.
However, I do believe that individual who does not have the qualities of being
extraverted limits him to be resilient. From the study conducted by Fayombo (2010) to
Caribbean Adolescents who were chosen as participants to measure resilience and its relationship
with personality showed that not all resilient individuals portray extraverted qualities like
talkative or outgoing but still possess the other pattern of traits that enabled them to develop
resilience. Same result showed in the test of resilience by multi-cultural military officers from
the study of Burke et al. (2006) in which the pattern of traits of the participants showed
commonalities except for extraversion. From their groups of participants, they saw that another
group having members who lack of extraversion qualities were proven to be resilient as well.
These studies support my claim that even introverts who possess other pattern of traits to develop
resilience are still capable of maintaining stability at the moment of adversities.
Conscientiousness
This trait as shown in individuals who are organized, acts in a structured style, has high
self-control and goal-oriented (Narayanan, 2008; Lamb, 2009: Pawlik-Kienlen, 2007).
According to Fayombo (2010) conscientiousness is the greatest predictor among the other traits
because it is highly related in having good emotional intelligence. The attitude of preparing
earlier and looking at all the possibilities help the individual to develop resilience when stressor
is present. This is agreed by the study of Lamb (2009) because having conscientiousness will
allow the individual to generate coping strategies at times of adversities. Furthermore,
conscientiousness allow the person to be in control of things which means he is less impulsive
(Benard, 1995; Narayanan, 2008) and achieves success by properly managing things as well as
interpreting challenges in different manner.
Agreeableness
In my personal opinion, agreeableness is an important trait to develop resilience because
it primarily helps the individual in terms of allowing social engagement to happen for the
emotional regulation of oneself in time of adversity but its degree does not have to be very high
but not very low as well. Agreeableness is shown from the interaction of the individual towards
interpersonal relationships (Lamb, 2009: De Raad, 2000) who tends to be pleasant to others, easy
to be with and assists other people as much as he can. Having the trait of agreeableness in social
engagement is important as this will help to develop strong foundations of relationships within
support groups due to establishment of trust and optimism towards humans and perceiving
positive outcomes in challenges (Fayombo, 2010) but regulation of this trait is also important in
order to acquire genuine warmth and acceptance from other people. Most of the studies affirmed
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that this has positive correlation in resilience especially with adolescents but showed no
significance for the military groups when it comes to dealing with stress (Burke et al., 2006).
This result probably has an effect to the kind of groups which resilience will be observed.
Openness to experience
This trait as suggested by Costa & McCrae (1992) will allow the individual to accept new
ideas and be able to live at the present. Openness to experience is the trait that requires intellect
and imaginative mind (Goldberg, 2006). These individuals would like to experience new things
and they are not afraid to take risks which will help the person to achieve stability even though
there are changes brought by an adversity. Supported by the study made Burke et al., (2006), this
trait shows good relationship with resilience because it affects the planning of the military
officers and for suppression from challenging activities. Basically, this trait allow the individual
not to dwell for a longer time to painful incidents but instead, look at the brighter side of it and
deal with changes that it conveyed.
Emotional Stability
It is consistently shown in the studies (Nakaya et al., 2006; Narayanan, 2008; Lamb,
2009; Eschleman et al., 2010) that having high neuroticism has a negative effect on the resilience
of the individual because it can bring negative emotions, pessimistic views and feelings that are
not helpful. As counterpart of neuroticism is the emotional stability that allow the person to feel
relaxed, calm and secured (Lamb, 2009: Edwards, 1998)
Characteristic Adaptation: Coping Styles of a Resilient Individual
Possessing a pattern of dispositional traits to an individual is displayed through the
different characteristic adaptations in all the aspects of his life. Characteristic adaptations as
explained in the work of McAdams & Pals (2006) are the “motives, goals, plans, strivings,
strategies, values, virtues, schemas, self-images, mental representations of significant others,
developmental tasks and other aspects that contributes to the individuality of the person”. As we
aimed to explain the personality of a resilient individual, it is important also to learn the
characteristic adaptations that are common to them which are highly influenced by their
dispositional traits. These adaptations are very broad to discuss, however knowing their coping
styles might help us to gain an impression to their other adaptations.
There are various coping styles that people were using when they encounter difficulties
or stressors. However, we would like to focus on the two types of coping which studied before
but are still espousing by current researches and relating it to their theories; these are problem-
focused coping and emotion-focused coping. Both of these coping styles are distinct to each other
from its functions and influence to a person. Basically, problem-focused coping is described as
the person being responsible to act or do something about the adversity while emotion-focused is
dealing with the management of emotions caused by the distressing event (Carver, Weintraub &
Scheir, 1989). I believe that a resilient individual possess these two coping styles when
experiencing adversity in life, however I assume that it is not used at the same time. It is possible
that the person will start to cope with emotions as the immediate action and it will be followed
by starting to do something about it.
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From the theory of Lazarus & Folkman (1980) as they called it “Ways of Coping”
explained Problem-focused coping through different ways. One of which is the Active coping
which is doing something in order to remove the conflict or the effects of the stressor to the
person. Another is Planning as forming necessary strategies or ways to cope with the stressor.
They also use Suppression of competing activities in which the person erases the other
distractions in life to focus on the stressor itself. One of them is also seen to individuals who are
not impulsive by performing and called it as Restraint coping which is not acting immediately
against the stressor. Lastly, as mentioned in the study of military officers (Burke et al., 2006) is
the Seeking social support for instrumental reasons which the person consults and seeks for an
advice or assistance to other people to resolve conflicts. From the study of Hooberman,
Rosenfeld & Keller (2010) problem-focused coping has no relationship with resilience variables
but it showed an influence with resolving psychological distress symptoms.
On the other hand, emotion-focused coping showed significant relationship to resilience
primarily on the person’s cognitive appraisal and social comparison. Conversely, there are
studies (Carver et al., 1987: Berman & Turk, 198l; Billings & Moos, 1984; Cos- tanza, Derlega,
& Winstead, 1988; Tolor & Fehon, 1987) that concluded that this coping can also be
maladaptive for an individual. One way it is used is through Seeking social support for emotional
reasons in which the person is asking for sympathy, moral support and understanding from other
people. They perceived it to be maladaptive because it might lead to exacerbation of negative
emotions and might influence the person to dwell with it and will not construct necessary steps to
deal with it.
From the study of Hooberman et al. (2010) emotion-focused coping showed relationship
to resilience especially in cognitive appraisal and social comparison primarily because when a
person experience an adversity he also looked at other’s challenges and when he perceived that
theirs is worse than him, there is a relief on his part. However, this is maladaptive because it may
also lead to guilt, self-blame and other negative symptoms. Contrariwise, I believed that resilient
individuals tend to exhibit emotion-focused coping as initial reaction because they need these
feelings and support group in order to regulate one self. From this regulation, it will lead to
problem-focused coping wherein the individual is already composed to think and act accordingly
in dealing with the adversity. In cases where other individuals are not able to perform these
coping strategies primarily because of factor which concerns to the development of the brain and
without the healthy support group that they should possess. There might be an imbalance of the
left and right hemisphere of the brain either the person failed to develop the one for regulation of
the self which involves emotions and body or for logical reasoning and analysis to interpret
things that are happening. These conflicts may due to severe stress during early development,
unhealthy nonverbal interaction with primary caregivers or having exposed to environmental
hazards when they were still young and was not given an intervention for it.
There are still other coping strategies which people tend to do that were used in the study
of Carver et al. (1987). One if which is the behavioral disengagement which the person learned
the idea of helplessness and dissuaded to exert effort to deal with the stressor (Cronkite & Mops,
1984; Holohan & Mops, 1985; and by McCrae, 1982, 1984). Another is mental disengagement
wherein the person distracts himself from thinking of the conflict through daydreaming, sleeping
or doing anything that will divert his attention (Carver, Peterson, Follansbee, & Scheier, 1983).
Denial is also included in their study in which the person is refuting the idea that the adversity is
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happening which might lead to more difficult coping if not addressed. Conversely, if the person
is not denial he may just lead to acceptance which is more adaptive because this allow the person
to accept that negative things happen and they do not need to blame anyone or deny anything but
accept the reality of life (Breznitz, 1983; E Co- hen & Lazarus, 1973; Wilson, 1981). Lastly, they
also acknowledge the coping strategy of turning to religion in which most people do when they
feel they are under a big problem which they cannot resolve or they were asking for strength to
deal with it (McCrae and Costa 1986). Supported by the study of Ungar (2006), one participant
mentioned that religion plays a big role in her life when facing adversities because from religion
they tend to acquire courage and live with purpose. Other cultural groups in this study did not
show the same result which shows their differences from one another.
Discussion
Understanding the personality of a resilient individual as illustrated in Figure 1 shows the
relationship of the three factors that contribute for the formation of pattern of traits as well as
their adaptations in the society and environment. These three factors are the role of the brain in
which we highly considered the development of left and right hemisphere and specifically
identify the functions of orbitofrontal region in the prefrontal cortex for the regulation of
emotions and body during an adversity. Another factor is the role of support group which we
adapt the interpersonal theory of Sullivan and justified our claim that other individuals aside
from the family can become the support group of an individual who can give affection, warmth
and acceptance that can help for the development of resilience. The last factor is the culture
orientation in which shown from studies that resilient individuals tend to vary on their
perspectives and coping styles when they belong to different culture whether it is individualist or
collectivist. These three are collaborating in the formation of dispositional traits which according
to studies are the pattern of traits of a healthy personality as described in the Big Five. This
pattern of traits influenced the individuals’ coping styles when they are in front of a stressor or in
the midst of an adversity is just one of the characteristic adaptations that these traits formed.
Looking at the perspective of brain alone in developing resilience primarily needs to be
the balance of both right and left hemisphere of the brain. We have discussed that right
hemisphere where we can find the orbitofrontal region in prefrontal cortex is the one responsible
for the regulation of the body and emotions of an individual which is developed at the early stage
through healthy nonverbal interaction. Impairment of this hemisphere will lead to neuroticism or
failure to manage distress cause by an adversity but a balance of both will allow the individual to
arrive at effective coping strategies to maintain stability. On the other hand, support group also
gives a big impact for the development and stability of resilience of an individual. It has a big
role in the structuring of the brain having the genetic make-up needed from the parents; it has a
role for the healthy development of right hemisphere that enabled the individual to learn how to
regulate oneself from what was seen and adopt from primary caregivers. It is also responsible for
the development of the left hemisphere together with the language of culture to develop thinking
styles and interpreting events. These roles were all essential for the development of the pattern
dispositional traits of the person that leads to resilience. Having a healthy development and
balance of both hemispheres in which support group played a major role; the individual was able
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to come up with effective coping strategies wherein they are still included. Support group has
role in both coping styles which were discussed. They have role in problem-focused coping by
giving advice, information and assistance to the individual. A special role is also exhibited in
emotion-focused coping by the one who listens to the venting out of emotions or filling the
emotion from loss of a loved one and other more. However, there are studies also which showed
that having support group can be maladaptive. From the study of Fitzsimons and Finkel (2011),
individuals tend to exhibit outsourcing self-regulation in which they felt lenient to exert an effort
knowing that there is somebody who can do the task for them. This is quite similar with seeking
social support for instrumental reason. Support group helps for the regulation of the person but it
is maladaptive if not addressed properly. Support group is not just coming from the family but
also to other people around the environment of an individual. A study made by Snider & Dawes
(2006) proved that even orphans are still able to develop resilience having good relationship with
peers and supportive caregivers though parent-child relationship was not established. Culture
also affects the individual’s resilience especially how they perceive adversities in life. One aspect
in which culture takes part is when religion is used in order to cope with adversities. There are
things that our culture orientation taught us in which we cannot separate to ourselves as we grow
old. In addition, culture influences our personality because we live in a society sharing the same
systems that comprise the culture. We tend to conform and align our behaviors, thinking styles,
affect as well as our self-concept taking culture as one factor.
These three important factors are essential to collaborate to each other to achieve
resilience. From the discussion of Interpersonal Neurobiology it showed the essential
relationship of the brain and support group starting from the structure of the brain through the
genes, to the development of left and right hemispheres of the brain in which important regions
for the formation of the personality takes place which result from having good nonverbal
interactions during infancy, providing the general needs and reducing anxiety, modeling of
thinking styles and regulation of emotions. Culture also interacts with the brain activity because
of its purpose in terms of the cognitive appraisal of the individual which serves as the ability of
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the mind to identify the stressor as possibly imparted by the culture (e.g. superstitious beliefs,
against traditions etc.). Moreover, the prefrontal regions of the brain which was discussed earlier
that regulate the body and emotion are also responsible for the social and moral development of
the individual (Siegel, 2001: Anderson, Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 1999; Dolan,
1999). This social and moral aspects as influenced from the language of culture was transmitted
by the support group of the person; this is the reason why impairment in this certain region of the
brain would highly influenced for failure to understand this information and might behave
inappropriately in the society. The role of culture and support group is highly significant as well
for the formation of resilience to an individual. The culture is primarily composed of shared
systems which are transmitted to one another in various ways to the one who belongs to the same
geographical location. The shared systems serve as the standards of the group of people on how
to perceive things, deal with various situations and interact with one another. They are both
independent to each other though the relationship of culture and support group enabled the
individual to know his identity, feel the sense of belongingness and develop effective ways to
live in the society, one of which is resilience.
These three factors are all important for the formation of dispositional traits of the person.
Brain is for the biological perspective in which genetics and physical being are involved. If there
were experienced deficiency in this aspect, it has a big effect also in the personality of the
person. Support group helps the individual for the formation of personality through
communication and affection that they can give. Through these things traits can even be
developed not only biologically but in a social context as well. They perform a big role for the
development of resilience because their presence helps the person to achieve self-regulation in
many ways. Culture takes part also for the development of the traits by providing a set of rules,
traditions, beliefs which the person can choose to conform or to adapt which often seen on how
they deal with different situations in life.
Dispositional traits were formed by these three factors and from there individuals will
begin to manifest the behaviors, perceptions, motives and other parts of individuality which we
considered as characteristic adaptations. These are influenced by our dispositions and we tend to
manifest those in accordance with the traits that we have. Characteristic adaptations were often
the things that we possess in our personality that can change over time or through therapy. These
can be our beliefs about things, goals for our self and for others, motivations to act as well as our
coping styles when we are experiencing adversities. From the pattern of traits for a resilient
individual, we have mentioned that these persons tend to have a balance of problem-focused
coping and emotion-focused coping strategies primarily developed from the traits that they
possessed.
According to the study of Hooberman et al. (2010), emotion-focused coping seems to
have significant relationship with resilience primarily because of their traits such as emotional
stability and agreeableness. Due to a healthy development of the brain that allow them to self-
regulate easily, they possess emotional stability trait that allow them to remain relax, calm and
secured in the face of an adversity. Moreover, due to their trait of agreeableness in which allow
them to establish good foundations of relationship with other people they easily perform the
coping through seeking social support for emotional reason. They have healthy support groups
that allow them to receive moral support, sympathy and warmth that boost them to maintain
stability after an adversity. From the proposition that resilient individuals have balanced coping
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strategies starting from emotion-focused coping which might be their initial reaction and it is
followed by problem-focused coping techniques influenced by the pattern of their traits.
Supported by study of Burke et al. (2006), the trait of extraversion allow the individual to
develop the coping through seeking social support for instrumental reasons because they tend to
use their energy coming from their support groups which allow them to easily ask for their
advice, suggestions or their help in order to cope. Being conscientious also helps a lot for a
resilient individual in an adversity because their attitude of being cautious and organized allow
them to cope which often seen in coping strategies like restraint coping which they do not react
immediately against the stressor and planning that allow them to identify what effective ways to
do for that conflict. More importantly, their trait of being open to experience allow them to
perform coping strategy of acceptance in which they recognize the presence of the adversity and
accepts what it brings to them but this trait also influences the individual to develop active
coping by allowing new ideas and strategies to flow on his mind in order to make solutions for
the effects of the adversity. These two types of coping strategies are hand-in-hand to an
individual in order to maintain stability no matter how difficult an aversive situation may give.
Everyone has their own natural way of coping. Others may find it easy to deal with
struggles and challenges, others need to dwell on it for a mean time to get over it afterwards and
some needs professional assistance to face and accept that it is part of life. This is just another
proof that people have their own individual differences, we have different personalities but that
cannot limit us to exhibit our own capabilities and assert our privileges to live life at its fullest.
Adversities are always part of living our lives but overcoming them made our lives worthwhile.
Limitations of the Theory
This integrative framework explaining the personality of resilient individuals still needs
to have more supported evidences and in-depth research in order to fully justify the theory. In
discussion of brain structures and its functions which primarily focused only on the purpose and
development of left and right hemispheres specifically the region of orbitofrontal in prefrontal
cortex is limited to cover other aspects like explaining critically the brain activity that may also
influence the occurrence of resilient personality. The role of support group also in this theory
gave limited explanation for the influence of specific relationships of the individual most
especially the parents, siblings, peers, intimate partners and/or offspring. It is helpful also if the
discussion for the relationship of culture and resilience will be supported by more studies that
fully explains the distinct characteristics of individualism and collectivism especially the effects
of their existence to the resilience of group of people in an adversity like disasters and chaos. The
theory also is bounded only in the pattern of traits adopted from the Big Five and disregards the
other possible dispositional traits that can also be related to explain the resilience of an
individual. Lastly, characteristic adaptation of coping strategies is also limited only on the
perspective of resilient individuals who easily maintains stability after an adversity and discounts
the process of coping strategies by individuals who show resilience in a slower pace and those
who seek for therapy. It is encouraged that future researches and theories may also look at the
following limitations of the presented framework.
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