Personality Strengths as Resilience: A One‐Year Multiwave Study

We examined how personality strengths prospectively predict reactions to negative life events. Participants were 797 community adults from 42 countries. At five points over the course of 1 year, participants completed a series of questionnaires measuring seven personality strengths (hope, grit, mean...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of personality 2017-06, Vol.85 (3), p.423-434
Main Authors: Goodman, Fallon R., Disabato, David J., Kashdan, Todd B., Machell, Kyla A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Curiosity
Female
Gratitude
Humans
Life Change Events
Life control
Linear analysis
Male
Meaning
Middle Aged
Motivation
Negative events
Negative life events
Personality
Personality Assessment
Personality tests
Psychological assessment
Psychology
Questionnaires
Resilience
Resilience, Psychological
Severity
Surveys and Questionnaires
Well being
Young Adult
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Summary:We examined how personality strengths prospectively predict reactions to negative life events. Participants were 797 community adults from 42 countries. At five points over the course of 1 year, participants completed a series of questionnaires measuring seven personality strengths (hope, grit, meaning in life, curiosity, gratitude, control beliefs, and use of strengths), subjective well‐being, and frequency and severity of negative life events. Using hierarchical linear modeling with assessment periods nested within participants, results from lagged analyses found that only hope emerged as a resilience factor. To illustrate the importance of using appropriate lagged analyses in resilience research, we ran nonlagged analyses; these results suggest that all seven personality strengths moderated the effect of negative life events on subjective well‐being, with greater strengths associated with healthier outcomes. To provide evidence that personality strengths confer resilience, a prospective examination is needed with the inclusion of events and responses to them. The use of concurrent methodologies and analyses, which is the norm in psychology, often leads to erroneous conclusions. Hope, the ability to generate routes to reach goals and the motivation to use those routes, was shown to be particularly important in promoting resilience.
ISSN:0022-3506
1467-6494
DOI:10.1111/jopy.12250