TY - JOUR
T1 - The multidimensional nature of resilience to spousal loss
AU - Infurna, Frank
AU - Luthar, Suniya
N1 - Funding Information:
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies. The authors gratefully acknowledge support provided by the National Institutes of Health (R01AG048844 to Infurna and R01DA014385 to Luthar).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 American Psychological Association.
PY - 2017/6
Y1 - 2017/6
N2 - Spousal loss can be one of the most devastating events to occur across one's life, resulting in difficulties across different spheres of adjustment; yet, past research on resilience to bereavement has primarily focused on single adjustment indicators. We applied growth mixture modeling to data from 421 participants from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia Study who experienced spousal loss during the course of the study to examine (a) the extent to which individuals appear to be resilient across 3 indicators of subjective well-being-life satisfaction, negative affect, and positive affect, and 2 indicators of health-perceptions of general health and physical functioning-and (b) factors that might promote resilience. Approximately 66%, 19% and 26% individuals showed resilient trajectories, respectively, for life satisfaction, negative affect, and positive affect, whereas 37% and 28% showed resilience, respectively, for perceptions of general health and physical functioning. When we considered all 5 indicators simultaneously, only 8% showed "multidimensional" resilience, whereas 20% showed a non-resilient trajectory across all 5 indicators. The strongest predictors of resilient trajectories were continued engagement in everyday life activities and in social relationships, followed by anticipation that people would comfort them in times of distress. Overall, our findings demonstrate that resiliein the face of spousal bereavement is less common than previously thought. More importantly, they underscore the critical importance of multidimensional approaches while operationalizing doing well in the context of serious life adversities.
AB - Spousal loss can be one of the most devastating events to occur across one's life, resulting in difficulties across different spheres of adjustment; yet, past research on resilience to bereavement has primarily focused on single adjustment indicators. We applied growth mixture modeling to data from 421 participants from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia Study who experienced spousal loss during the course of the study to examine (a) the extent to which individuals appear to be resilient across 3 indicators of subjective well-being-life satisfaction, negative affect, and positive affect, and 2 indicators of health-perceptions of general health and physical functioning-and (b) factors that might promote resilience. Approximately 66%, 19% and 26% individuals showed resilient trajectories, respectively, for life satisfaction, negative affect, and positive affect, whereas 37% and 28% showed resilience, respectively, for perceptions of general health and physical functioning. When we considered all 5 indicators simultaneously, only 8% showed "multidimensional" resilience, whereas 20% showed a non-resilient trajectory across all 5 indicators. The strongest predictors of resilient trajectories were continued engagement in everyday life activities and in social relationships, followed by anticipation that people would comfort them in times of distress. Overall, our findings demonstrate that resiliein the face of spousal bereavement is less common than previously thought. More importantly, they underscore the critical importance of multidimensional approaches while operationalizing doing well in the context of serious life adversities.
KW - Bereavement
KW - HILDA: subjective well-being
KW - Major life stressors
KW - Resilience
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U2 - 10.1037/pspp0000095
DO - 10.1037/pspp0000095
M3 - Article
C2 - 27399253
AN - SCOPUS:84977641832
SN - 0022-3514
VL - 112
SP - 926
EP - 947
JO - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
JF - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
IS - 6
ER -