Exposure to adversity (e.g., poverty, bereavement) is a robust predictor of disruptions in psychological functioning. However, people vary greatly in their responses to adversity; some experience severe long-term disruptions, others experience minimal disruptions or even improvements . We refer to the latter outcomes—faring better than expected given adversity—as psychological resilience. Understanding what processes explain resilience has critical theoretical and practical implications. Yet, psychology's understanding of resilience is incomplete, for two reasons: ( a) We lack conceptual clarity, and ( b) two major approaches to resilience—the stress and coping approach and the emotion and emotion-regulation approach—have limitations and are relatively isolated from one another. To address these two obstacles, we first discuss conceptual questions about resilience. Next, we offer an integrative affect-regulation framework that capitalizes on complementary strengths of both approaches. This framework advances our understanding of resilience by integrating existing findings, highlighting gaps in knowledge, and guiding future research. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 74 is January 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Daily life is full of emotional ups and downs. In contrast, the objective conditions of our lives usually remain relatively stable from day to day. The degree to which emotional ups and downs influence life satisfactionwhich prima facie should be relatively stable-remains a puzzle. In the present article, we propose the Individual Differences in Evaluating Life Satisfaction (IDELS) model to address this puzzle. The IDELS model posits that people differ in the processes by which they evaluate their life satisfaction: Some people's life satisfaction is more strongly associated with their current emotions (i.e., "emotion globalizing") whereas other people maintain a filter between their life satisfaction and current emotions. These individual differences should have important implications for the degree of short-term variability in life satisfaction and, in turn, for psychological health. In 3 diverse samples of women (total N ϭ 536), we assessed life satisfaction and emotions daily or multiple times per day for 2 weeks. We tested 4 hypotheses derived from the IDELS model. First, participants differed substantially in the degree of short-term variability in life satisfaction, and these individual differences were moderately stable. Second, participants differed substantially in emotion globalizing, and these individual differences were moderately stable. Third, higher emotion globalizing predicted greater short-term variability in life satisfaction. Fourth, greater short-term variability in life satisfaction was associated with a maladaptive profile of greater neuroticism and worse psychological health. We discuss implications for life satisfaction theory and measurement.

We conducted a 26-month follow-up of a previously reported 12-month study that compared mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) to a rigorous active control condition (ACC) for depressive relapse/recurrence prevention and improvements in depressive symptoms and life satisfaction. Participants in remission from major depression were randomized to an 8-week MBCT group (n = 46) or the ACC (n = 46). Outcomes were assessed at baseline; postintervention; and 6, 12, and 26 months. Intention-to-treat analyses indicated no differences between groups for any outcome over the 26-month follow-up. Time to relapse results (MBCT vs. ACC) indicated a hazard ratio = .82, 95% CI [.34, 1.99]. Relapse rates were 47.8% for MBCT and 50.0% for ACC. Piecewise analyses indicated that steeper declines in depressive symptoms in the MBCT vs. the ACC group from postintervention to 12 months were not maintained after 12 months. Both groups experienced a marginally significant rebound of depressive symptoms after 12 months but were still improved at 26 months compared to baseline (b = -4.12, p <= .008). Results for life satisfaction were similar. In sum, over a 26-month follow-up, MBCT was no more effective for preventing depression relapse/recurrence, reducing depressive symptoms, or improving life satisfaction than a rigorous ACC. Based on epidemiological data and evidence from prior depression prevention trials, we discuss the possibility that both MBCT and ACC confer equal therapeutic benefit. Future studies that include treatment as usual (TAU) control conditions are needed to confirm this possibility and to rule out the potential role of time-related effects. Overall findings underscore the importance of comparing MBCT to TAU as well as to ACCs.

Despite the importance of life satisfaction for health and well-being, there is a paucity of longitudinal studies tracking changes in life satisfaction in ethnic minority youth. Using a sample of 674 Mexican-origin youth, the present research examined life satisfaction trajectories from middle (age 14) to late adolescence (age 17) and from late adolescence to young adulthood (age 21). On average, life satisfaction did not change significantly from age 14 to 17, and then decreased from age 17 to 21 (d = .30), perhaps reflecting difficulties transitioning into adult roles. Drawing on ecological systems theory, we examined both proximal (i.e., family) and distal (i.e., social-contextual) environmental factors (measured via self-and parent-reports) that may account for between-person variation in life satisfaction trajectories. Youth with more positive family environments in middle adolescence (age 14) had higher mean life satisfaction from middle adolescence to young adulthood (age 21). In contrast, youth with more negative family environments and who experienced greater economic hardship and more ethnic discrimination in middle adolescence (age 14) had lower life satisfaction during this period. Many of these factors also predicted change in life satisfaction from middle (age 14) to late adolescence (age 17), but not from late adolescence to young adulthood (age 21). This research extends the current understanding of life satisfaction during a critical developmental period in an understudied population.

Objective The present research aimed to better understand deficits in emotion differentiation that accompany depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms have been associated with more undifferentiated negative emotion experiences—experiencing multiple negative emotions simultaneously. We extend previous research by asking: (a) Are depressive symptoms and negative and positive emotion differentiation related above and beyond emotion intensity? (b) Are deficits in negative emotion differentiation specific to distinct categories of negative emotions (sadness, guilt, anger, and anxiety)? and (c) Do age or gender predict emotion differentiation or its associations with depressive symptoms? Method In 220 community participants (59% female; 21–60 years), we assessed depressive symptoms using surveys and emotion differentiation using daily diary emotion ratings in response to daily stressful events. Results Greater depressive symptoms were associated with lower negative, but not positive, emotion differentiation, above and beyond emotion intensity. Depressive symptoms were specifically related to lower differentiation among sadness‐related emotions, and this sadness‐specific deficit accounted for the deficit in negative emotion differentiation. Age and gender did not predict or moderate associations with emotion differentiation. Conclusion Depressive symptoms are associated with undifferentiated negative emotions above and beyond emotion intensity, and this association appears to be driven by undifferentiated sadness‐related emotions, across gender and age.

In the present research, we investigated the effects of self- and situation-focused reappraisal, which are 2 distinct types of cognitive reappraisal, on emotion experiences, memory, and electrocortical responses to unpleasant pictures. In Study 1, situation-focused reappraisal was found to improve recall accuracy, whereas self-focused reappraisal had no effect. Both strategy types were associated with reductions in self-reported negative emotion, with larger reductions during situation-focused reappraisal. In Study 2, event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while participants engaged in the 2 strategy types. Situation-focused, but not self-focused, reappraisal was associated with reductions in the late positive potential, an ERP that reflects facilitated attention to emotional stimuli. Taken together, these findings suggest that reappraisal is not a homogenous regulation strategy; on the contrary, subtypes of reappraisal elicit distinct consequence profiles. (PsycINFO Database Record

Objective The present study tested preregistered predictions regarding the prospective associations between level and change in subjective well-being (SWB) and physical health. Methods In two large longitudinal panel studies conducted in the United States (N = 3294) and Japan (N = 657), we used multilevel growth curve models to estimate level and change in components of SWB (i.e., life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect). Next, we used random intercepts and slopes to predict subsequent self-reported general health and number of chronic health conditions (in the United States and Japan) and mortality risk (in the United States). Results Greater life satisfaction, higher positive affect, and lower negative affect were associated with better health (0.22 < |β values| < 0.46) and longer survival. Above and beyond SWB level, longitudinal increases in life satisfaction and positive affect and longitudinal decreases in negative affect were associated with better health (0.06 < |β values| < 0.20). Moreover, all three SWB components independently predicted health, and life satisfaction and negative affect independently predicted survival. The preregistration and analysis scripts are available at osf.io/mz9gy. Conclusions The present findings suggest that being happy and becoming happier across time are independently associated with better physical health in the United States and Japan.

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