Positive emotions and resilience: Exploring subjective, cognitive, and physiological consequences.

Theory indicates that resilient individuals are able to bounce back from stressful experiences quickly and effectively, having the capacity to flexibly adapt to changing situational demands. Few studies, however, have provided supportive empirical evidence for this theory. The present investigation seeks to do so, using a multi-method approach to examine the subjective, cognitive, and physiological qualities of psychological resilience. Toward this end, the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 1998; 2001) is used as a framework for understanding resilience theory. Five studies explore the hypothesis that resilient people use positive emotions to rebound from, find positive meaning in, and flexibly cope with, stressful encounters. Study 1 examined the physiological characteristics associated with psychological resilience. In Study 2, cognitive appraisals were experimentally manipulated to examine their role in relation to psychological resilience and cardiovascular recovery from negative emotional arousal. Moving beyond laboratory-based stressors, Study 3 examined the role that resilience and positive emotions have in the capacity to find positive meaning in negative circumstances. In Studies 1, 2, and 3, mediational analyses revealed that the experience of positive emotions contributed, in part, to participants' ability to achieve efficient emotion regulation, demonstrated by accelerated cardiovascular recovery from negative emotional arousal (Studies 1 and 2) and by finding positive meaning in negative circumstances (Study 3). Studies 4 and 5 examined the reasons why positive emotions help low and high resilient individuals effectively recover from stressful experiences by examining the critical role that positive emotions might play in broadening coping resources (Study 4) with which to flexibly cope in times of stress (Study 5). Findings revealed that positive emotions are useful to low and high resilient individuals in different ways, which provide insights into potential developmental processes associated with psychological resilience. Implications for research on resilience and positive emotions are discussed.PhDClinical psychologyPsychologySocial psychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/128811/2/3029447.pd