Abstract

Although research concerning the effects of traumatic and stressful life events on an individual’s mental health has been plentiful in the past several decades, research aimed at understanding the nature of resilience and its role in this process has been less plentiful. The present study examined the relationship between a commonly used measure of resilience, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), facets of personality, and symptoms of psychopathology—specifically, posttraumatic symptomatology—in a sample of college students. We found that the CD-RISC was most strongly linked with the personality facet of positive emotionality rather than the expected facet of negative emotionality. With regard to psychopa-thology, the CD-RISC displayed the largest relationship to a measure of anhedonic depression rather than a measure of posttraumatic stress. Lastly, the CD-RISC added little in predicting symptoms of posttraumatic stress above and beyond negative emotionality, a personality facet that has previously shown robust relation-ships with posttraumatic stress. These results suggest that the CD-RISC is most strongly predictive of positive emotionality and thus may be most useful in predicting resilience for disorders characterized by disruptions in positive affect.
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Authors

Jordan S. Robinson
Christine L Larson
Shawn P. Cahill