Resilience : stress and coping in the Asian context.

Abstract

A sample of 60 college students was used to examine how positive and negative thinking variables affect resilience in the Asian context and to illustrate that effective coping and the promotion of resilience depends on a mixture of personal qualities. Results showed that while self-esteem and empathy significantly predicted resilience, social support however did not significantly predict resilience. An interaction effect between anxiety and defensive pessimism on resilience was yielded as well. Anxious individuals who employed defensive pessimism had higher resilience than equivalently anxious individuals who did not employ this strategy. The effects of anxiety on resilience thus depended on the levels of defensive pessimism. It was found in this study that individuals with low self-esteem and those with high self-esteem coped with fear of failure differently. Taken together, these findings have implications in promoting resilience among individuals.