What is Resilience?

It's one of the hottest topics around, but are we even talking about the same thing?

Resilience.

It’s one of those words that everyone knows, but with a different definition. And that’s a problem. If we are all operating with different assumptions about what resilience is, we can’t make meaningful progress to improve it. And this issue isn’t restricted only to the startup space—it’s a constant discussion in the scientific community as well.

Despite its current popularity, resilience wasn’t a concept that was discussed much—let alone studied—until the early 2000s. And it wasn’t until the past 10 years or so that scientists have come to a (relative) conclusion about what resilience is and what it isn’t, as well as qualifiers for specific types of resilience. This article represents my views on resilience, informed by more than 10 years of researching stress, trauma, growth, recovery, and resilience, and by the scientific work of Drs. George Bonanno, Steven Southwick, and Ann Masten.

The most general—and the most vague—definition of resilience is the ability to adapt and adjust favorably in the face of stressors. It is the ability to bend without breaking, bounce back, and perhaps even grow when we encounter adversity (Southwick et al., 2014).

While this basic definition is helpful, resilience isn’t quite that simple.

First, it’s important to understand that resilience is not binary; although it might be tempting to assume people are either resilient or not resilient, in reality, resilience exists along a continuum that differs both between people and within people depending on the context, timing, their developmental period, prior experiences, current biological state and environment, and available resources (in all of the ways you can consider “resources”—physical, mental, emotional, social, financial, time, etc.) (Southwick et al., 2014).

Second, there are a couple of different types of resilience, which are distinct from recovery and growth. (I’ll explain.)

Originating from the developmental literature on chronic adversity in children, emergent resilience is the gradual emergence of positive adjustment despite exposure to chronically aversive environments and circumstances, with a focus on distal outcomes. For example, if someone grew up in poverty, experienced abuse, neglect, or racism, yet developed into a well-adjusted adult, we would say they have displayed emergent resilience (see Masten, 2011 for a review).

Minimal-impact resilience, conversely, is the ability to adapt to and recover quickly from acute, isolated stressors, including major—and even potentially traumatic—life events. Minimal-impact resilience includes a relatively stable trajectory of continuous healthy functioning from before to after an event, with only a transient stress response (Bonanno, 2004; Bonanno & Diminich, 2013). It’s what I would argue the majority of resilience-related wellness products are focused on improving.

Important distinctions between emergent and minimal-impact resilience include:

1. The stressor being categorized as either chronic adversity or an acute event;

2. The focus on distal vs. proximal patterns of adjustment;

3. The inclusion of a prolonged recovery. Emergent resilience includes delayed or prolonged recovery from adverse conditions, while minimal-impact resilience differentiates between a resilient trajectory in which there may be a minor response to meet the demands of a stressor followed by a quick return to baseline, and one that involves disruption to normal functioning followed by eventual recovery back to baseline (Bonanno & Diminich 2013; Galatzer-Levy et al., 2018; Masten, 2011). That’s what’s meant by minimal impact—it doesn’t mean there must be zero impact, but there shouldn’t be a major disruption to normal functioning.

An important distinction to make is that minimal impact resilience does not include growth. To use the adage “if it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you”, you can’t experience growth without undergoing a challenge. Does that mean growth in this sense is bad? Absolutely not! Life is all about growth! It just means that what you experienced was a stress response (of some kind) that led to you making changes.

The same happens for people who experience traumatic events: you can have both posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and posttraumatic growth (PTG) simultaneously. You can also have PTSD followed by recovery with PTG. What you cannot have is a resilient response and PTG (APA, 2016).

Minimal impact resilience is not better or worse than experiencing a response and growing, just different. What is less desirable is when a person stays in the “dysfunction” state, sans growth.

Now that you understand the ins and outs of resilience terminology more concretely, I’d love to know where your product stands. What type of resilience are you trying to improve? Or are you focused on improving recovery? Growth? How are you incorporating context, individual variation, and differences between people into your product?

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👋 I'm Lydia Roos, health psychologist, stress and wellbeing scientist, and Founder of EvolveWell Research Partners.

📌 EvolveWell specializes in conducting research for mental and physical health, wellness, and fitness companies on a project, fractional, or advisory basis.