The Structure of Resilience: An Empirical Examination of Resilience Factors

Although most researchers agree that resilience is defined as the extent to which an individual bounces back and recovers from stress and adversity, the field has not yet settled on the underlying structure of the resilience construct; its lower-order factors remain in dispute and undefined. In this study, five of the most prominent resilience measures (i.e., Ego Resilience, Block & Kremen, 1996; The Resilience Scale, Wagnild & Young, 1993; The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, Connor & Davidson, 2003; The Resilience Scale for Adults, Friborg, Hjemdal, Rosenvinge, & Martinussen, 2003; The Brief Resilience Scale, Smith, Dalen, Wiggins, & Tooley, 2008) were administered to two large samples of U.S. adults (N = 396 and 336, respectively). Through a combination of exploratory and confirmatory techniques, seven lower-order resilience factors were identified. Relationships between general resilience, lower-order resilience factors, and correlates were examined. Results reveal that lower-order resilience factors are moderately correlated with one another and are differentially related to outcomes of interest. Follow-up hierarchical regression and relative weights analyses further reveal that general resilience substantially overlaps with Big Five personality measures, but, in many cases, its lower-order factors do not. Consequently, it is recommended moving forward that researchers continue to study the resilience construct, but do so by focusing on lower-order resilience factors, rather than on global measures of the overall resilience construct