Resilienza e regolazione delle emozioni. Un approccio multimodale

Thesis object is resilience considered as the ability to deal with critical and stressful events, overcome them and continue to grow by increasing its resources, with a consequent positive life reorganization (Malaguti, 2005). As pointed out by Richardson (2000) resilience has a dual nature is both a state, a set of traits and resilient qualities (self-esteem, self-efficacy, optimism, etc..) and a process which leads to the attainment of the state. The resilience is innate because everyone born with a different "predisposition to resilience” but at the same time is acquirable and developable through the resilient process. Starting from a general art state analysis on the resilience construct, the thesis turns its attention to the psychological processes that begins with the resilient quality allowing the positive resolution of the critical event (resilient reintegration). In particular, the thesis consists of three studies, focuses on the relationship between the resilience of the one part and the emotion regulation process on the other. Before proceeding to the experimental investigation of relations between resilience and emotional regulation was necessary identify, translate and validate three scales for the assessment of resilience: Resilience Scale (Wagnild & Young, 1993), the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (Connor, Jonathan, & Davidson, 2003) and the Resilience Scale for Adults (Friborg, Hjemdal, Rosenvinge, & Martinussen, 2003). The validation work, conducted on a sample of 400 subjects and subject of the first study, shows good psychometric properties of all three scales, but particularly highlights the reliability and validity of the Resilience Scale for Adults, who besides provide an overall assessment of resilience’s level, also allows to obtain information about personal resources and social networks to which resilient individuals appeal to face the critical life situations. The second study's objective is an in-depth examination of the relationship between the resilience from a side and some of the emotion regulation process components from the other one. The considered components are: appraisal, coping and positive emotions. The second study fits into a situational perspective and adopt a multimodal approach using both subjective measurements, such as self-report, both objective measurements such as the not verbal behavior analysis. We use a research design with one independent variable at two levels: resilience (a1 = resilient, a2 = not resilient) and a sample of 60 female subjects. Second study's results confirm some matches already verified by other researchers, such as the close links between being resilient and experience more positive emotions during and after stressful events, and between being resilient and appraise stressful events as challenges (Tugade e Fredrikson, 2004). The mediation effect study highlights the link between these two phenomena. The obtained mediation model suggests that the biggest positive emotion experimentation is imputable to the appraisal of challenge that the resilient do in front of every kind of emergency. The second study offers also new insights on the relationship between coping, appraisal and resilience. Inside this relationship plays a key role the appraisal of controllability of the events. If resilient appraise the stressful event as controllable they actively face him with a coping approach style, if instead they don’t evaluate the situation as controllable they choose other types of coping like avoidance coping or how data coming from the analysis of the not verbal behaviour suggest a repressive coping form that is a passive event acceptance. In both cases, the chosen style of coping, coupled with increased testing of positive emotions, ensure the best possible adaptation with respect to the circumstances. Thesis intent is also to pass from the theory on resilience to the "practice" of resilience. The third study's objective is the effectiveness evaluation of a training that aims to improve the “resilient reintegration” through the enhancement of some components of the emotion regulation process seen in the second study (appraisal, coping and positive emotions). The training adopts as work methodology the guided personal narratives about events emotionally positively or negatively features. We use an experimental research design with two independent variables: resilience (a1 = resilient, a2 = not resilient), training (b1 = positive training, b2 = negative training, b3 = no training) and a sample of 60 female subjects. Results highlight the possibility of improving the ability of the not resilient individuals to adapt quickly and positively to the experimental stressful events by strengthening the process of emotion regulation and some of its components specifically: appraisal of control, coping and positive emotions. Enhancement achieved through the use of personal narratives about stressful events negative features. The same type of reinforcement obtained from the negative training, doesn’t seem reachable with positive training. The ineffectiveness of the positive training can be attributed to an inadequate assessment methodology, or to a deliveries not sufficiently clear and comprehensive. The third study also shows the not training effectiveness (positive or negative) for the resilient individuals at the purposes of strengthening the emotion regulation process and therefore the ability to adapt positively. It’s possible to assume that resilient individuals already able in regulating their emotions, as evidenced by second study’s results, need to achieve further enhancement of its resilience a more intensive and specifically directed work on various resilient qualities.