Abstract
This article focuses on limited knowledge regarding the associations among three levels of resilience and the importance of these associations: individual, community, and national. The few studies that have examined these associations indicated the following: (a) There are significant positive low correlations among individual, community, and national resilience. (b) Some demographic variables significantly predict all three of them. (c) There is limited knowledge whether and to what degree there are mutual influences among these levels of resilience. (d) All three levels of resilience predict individual well-being and successful coping with potential traumatic events.
Introduction
Research indicates that potentially traumatic events (Bonanno, 2005) such as wars, natural disasters, or economic crises quite often result in detrimental psychological outcomes (Galea et al., 2003; Hobfoll et al., 2006; Johnson et al., 2009). It has been argued further that the effects of stressful events are cumulative. Prolonged stress is a major contributor to a detrimental physical and psychological aftermath of distress (Besser and Neria, 2009).
In recent years, the concept of resilience has often been used in discussing people’s ability to withstand stress. Resilience is a positive trajectory of adaptation after a disturbance, distress, or an adversity (Norris et al., 2008) which constitutes “the capacity for successful adaptation, positive functioning or competence… despite high-risk status, chronic distress, or following prolonged or severe trauma” (Egeland et al., 1993: 517). According to Fletcher and Sarkar (2013), despite the construct of psychological resilience being operationalized in a variety of ways, most definitions revolve around two core concepts: adversity and positive adaptation. These authors claimed that resilience is conceptualized as the interactive influence of psychological characteristics within the context of the stress process.
Examining the resilience literature more closely indicates some salient limitations: (a) The concept of resilience is often defined rather loosely (Norris and Stevens, 2007). Moreover, it seems that there is no clear distinction between the concept of resilience and concepts such as well-being, good adaptation, successful coping, and so on (Fletcher and Sarkar, 2013). (b) The validity of tools measuring community and national/social resilience has not been sufficiently substantiated. (c) Different studies have used different tools to measure each level of resilience and this makes it difficult to compare different studies. (d) Research on resilience focuses mostly on a single level of resilience without examining possible links among different levels of resilience (Brown and Kulig, 1996). This article focuses on the associations among the various levels of resilience and the high importance of these associations.
Levels of resilience
Three levels of resilience have been referred to in the relevant literature: individual, community, and national resilience. In some studies, the last two levels are regarded as social resilience. Overall, studies have indicated that all three levels of resilience have been found to contribute to good coping with the aftermath of major potentially traumatic events, for example, people’s ability to return to the same level of functioning compared with their pretraumatic condition (Weinrib et al., 2006). Unfortunately, only a few studies have examined the associations among these levels of resilience (e.g. Kimhi and Eshel, 2009).
Individual resilience
Bonanno (2005) defined individual resilience as the individual’s ability to maintain a stable level of functioning following traumatic events and as a “trajectory of healthy functioning across time” (p. 136). The literature survey indicated that most of the research on resilience pertains to individual resilience. Accordingly, one’s level of resilience is a key issue in buffering negative psychological consequences of potentially traumatic events (e.g. Kimhi et al., 2010). It has been argued that since security and insecurity are evaluated by individuals who experience them in a subjective manner (Tremblay et al., 2006), resilience should be regarded as an attribute of the individual (Antonovsky, 1979; Kobasa, 1982).
One of the common measures of individual resilience is sense of coherence (SOC). This concept is comprised of three interrelated components: sense of meaningfulness, comprehensibility, and manageability. Hence, SOC affects how individuals perceive the world and the events that happen to them as well as the extent to which they perceive these events as controllable (e.g. Kimhi and Eshel, 2009). According to Antonovsky (1979), SOC constitutes a measure of individual resilience which affects one’s ability to cope with harsh events such as natural disaster or war, as well as the rate of recovery from distressing events and return to normal life. The extensive research linking SOC with reactions to distress (Kimhi et al., 2010) has supported its validity as a measure of individual resilience.
Several studies have examined the contribution of the social component, such as social support (e.g. Lee et al., 2013), to individual resilience. Results have indicated the protective nature of conscientiousness, emotional stability, and positive social interactions. Other studies have examined demographic variables predicting individual resilience such as gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, level of exposure to traumatic events, income, and health. For example, Bonanno et al. (2007) indicated that the prevalence of resilience (defined as having 1 or 0 posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and as being associated with low levels of depression and substance use) was uniquely predicted by participant gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, level of trauma exposure, income change, social support, frequency of chronic disease, and recent and past life stressors.
Resilience and health
Recent studies have pointed to the associations between resilience and a number of health conditions. Individual resilience has been studied with connection to social capital and self-rated health among 263 HIV-positive South Africans living in poverty (Dageid and Gronlie, 2013), multiple sclerosis (Black and Dorstyn, 2013), macular degeneration (Burton et al., 2013), diabetic neuropathy (Perna et al., 2013) and medical well-being (Hart et al., 2006). Overall, these and other studies suggest that higher resilience may enhance the ability to withstand various health conditions. However, much more study is required to examine the associations between health, and community and national resilience.
Community resilience
Cacioppo et al. (2011) defined social resilience as “the capacity to foster, engage in, and sustain positive relationships and to endure and recover from life stressors and social isolation” (p. 44). According to these authors, social resilience is intrinsically multilevel and includes three characteristics: (a) ways people relate to each other (e.g. agreeableness, trustworthiness), (b) interpersonal resources and capacities (e.g. sharing, attentive listening), and (c) collective resources and capacities (e.g. group identity, centrality). Similarly, Friedland (2005) claim that community resilience is manifested by society’s ability to readjust to changing or hostile environments in new and innovative ways. A seminal review of the field (Norris et al., 2008) suggested that community resilience is based on four antecedents: economic wealth and more egalitarian distribution of resources (Ahern and Galea, 2006), community social capital and social support, information and communication provided to community members in times of crisis (Cutter et al., 2008), and community competence, which empowers its ability to cope with stress and trauma.
Community resilience relates to both objective and subjective components. On the one hand, it involves caring for physical needs such as water and food, as well as providing physical protection. On the other hand, it reflects personal attitudes, perceptions and feelings towards one’s community, such as perceived threats, availability of community resources, social cohesion, and trust in leadership (Obrist et al., 2010). It has been observed that community resilience, much the same as individual resilience, is a major predictor of good coping with potential traumatic experiences.
There seems to be agreement among researchers that community resilience is an important resource for coping with major disasters and mass trauma events (Norris et al., 2008; Norris and Stevens, 2007). It has been found accordingly that a high level of community resilience enhances individuals’ coping during stress situations and is instrumental in faster poststress recovery (Sherrieb et al., 2010). An example of a tool designed to measure community resilience, the Community Resilience scale, was developed by the Conjoint Community Resilience Assessment Measure (CCRAM; Cohen et al., 2013; Leykin et al., 2013). This scale examined three main issues: (a) leadership, (b) social relations in the community, and (c) evaluation of community functioning in case of emergency.
National resilience
Several studies have referred to resilience as a wider societal phenomenon and have investigated it in terms of national resilience (Barnett, 2004; Chemtob, 2005) or social resilience (Cacioppo et al., 2011). The concept of national or social resilience is a broad one, addressing the issue of society’s sustainability and strength in several diverse realms (Amit and Fleischer, 2005; Obrist et al., 2010). Four main social components have been attributed to national resilience (Ben-Dor et al., 2002; Elran, 2006): patriotism, optimism, social integration, and trust in political and public institutions. These authors reasoned that, in a time of intractable conflict, members of a resilient society would display durable stability in maintaining these components. Elran’s (2006) study indicated that this indeed was the case in coping with the al-Aksa Intifada (the Palestinian uprising) by Israeli society. One of a few studies of antecedents of social resilience has shown that it was positively affected by the economic conditions of the respondents and negatively predicted by level of exposure to the horrors of war (Kimhi and Eshel, 2009). Looking at history, it is possible to claim that there are many historical examples of resilient societies coping successfully with traumatic events. One example is the Battle of Britain (Overy, 2001).
Associations among levels of resilience
A profound literature review revealed only two studies—done in Israel—which directly measured the associations between two or three levels of resilience: individual, community, and national resilience.
The first study (Kimhi et al., 2013) focused on demographic antecedents of community and national resilience. The authors hypothesized that both kinds of public resilience would be predicted by four demographic variables, which have rarely been associated with community or national hardiness in the past: community type, level of religiosity, level of preparedness, and age. The final sample of 435 participants included 92 kibbutz members (collective community), 61 moshav members (partly cooperative agricultural community), 38 inhabitants of villages, and 244 town dwellers. Results indicated the following: (a) When demographic variables were accounted for, community and national resilience were positively correlated with each other: R = .21, (p < .001). (b) The four demographic variables in the path analysis model, controlling for each other, significantly predicted community and national resilience. (c) Older age and higher level of religiosity positively predicted both community and national resilience. (d) Higher preparedness positively predicted only community resilience. (e) Results indicated that the more communal settlements (kibbutz and moshav) scored significantly higher than the less communal settlements (village and town) on community resilience, and members of the kibbutz scored significantly lower than city dwellers on national resilience.
The second study (Kimhi and Eshel, 2009) focused on the distinction between individual and public resilience (community and national resilience collapsed into a single general construct), and their effects on long-term negative (symptoms) and positive (posttraumatic recovery) war outcomes, one year after the end of the war. Path analysis indicated the following: (a) Gender, age, economic situation, and exposure to traumatic war events significantly predicted recovery as well as symptoms. Features such as being a male, younger person, higher economic situation, and lower exposure to traumatic war events were associated with a higher level of recovery and a lower level of stress symptoms. (b) Individual and public resilience (R = .37, p < .001) served as mediators between economic situation and exposure and the two war outcomes (stress symptoms and recovery). (c) The best predictor of posttraumatic recovery was public resilience, while the best predictor of stress symptoms was individual resilience. When the public resilience variable was broken into community and national components, correlations among the three levels of resilience indicated significant positive but low correlations: national and community (R = .357, p < .001), national and individual (R = .239, p < .001), and community and individual (R = .160, p < .001). In addition, results indicated that individual, community, and national resilience significantly predicted (p < .01) both stress symptoms and posttraumatic recovery.
In addition to the above two studies, a qualitative study, based on interviews, explored the association between individual and community resilience (Buikstra et al., 2010). Qualitative data analysis indicated that community and individual resilience affect each other and that individual and community attributes interact in forming or supporting resilience.
Based on the limited studies on the associations among the three levels of resilience, we may assume the following: (a) There are significant positive low correlations among individual, community, and national resilience: the higher each of them, the higher the other two. (b) Some demographic variables predict all the three of them (such as level of exposure to traumatic events and economic situation) and others associate only with one of them (such as preparedness, which associates positively with community resilience). (c) Based on the significant but low correlations, we may assume that each of the three levels represents an independent structure. (d) We hardly know if and to what degree there are mutual influences among these levels of resilience (e.g. how each of the three levels of community affects and is affected by the other two). (e) It seems that all three levels of resilience significantly predict an individual’s well-being, good adaptation, and successful coping with potential traumatic events. However, these assumptions are based on a limited number of studies and much more research is needed in order to substantiate them.
The importance of associations among the three levels of resilience
Limited knowledge regarding the associations among the various levels of resilience poses serious challenges to our understanding of what resilience is. Despite the limited studies, it seems very important to know much more about the associations among levels of resilience. The following are salient points:
As part of unexpected catastrophic events, professionals should be able to develop future plans in order to prepare and train populations to deal with them. Such plans seem to be less efficient when they are focused only on one level of resilience.
It seems that a future plan for dealing with catastrophic events should include some unique as well as common preparation and intervention plans for each of the resilience levels.
Better understanding the associations among levels of resilience might help us to set priorities for preparations and future interventions after a large-scale potential traumatic event takes place. For example, based on present knowledge, it appears that the major target for preparation and possible intervention to cope with a catastrophic event should be community resilience, due to the possibilities for taking practical steps to influence a maximum number of people in the shortest time.
Based on the above and due to the fact that we have very limited knowledge of the associations among the various levels of resilience, we urgently need additional studies to clarify the matter. These associations are very important both theoretically as well as practically to enable preparation of a large proportion of the population to cope with a future possible catastrophic event—either manmade or natural—and to determine how to plan large-scale interventions in such cases. Such preparation seems essential for better coping if worst happens. The salient recommendation for future studies is, of course, more studies which will examine the associations between the various levels of resilience.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.