Resilience profiles during adversity predict psychological outcomes

Four distinct profiles reveal how individuals coped in the COVID-19 pandemic

2026-02-11

(Press-News.org) Higher self-reported levels of resilience were linked to lower anxiety and depression and better coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published February 11, 2026, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Joseph Anthony Pettit of Bangor University, U.K., and colleagues.

Successfully managing and adapting to life’s challenges often requires resilience. Resilience has been linked to coping better with mental ill-health, lower emotional distress following adversity, and faster recovery from such experiences. However, past research has neglected individual profiles of resilience and how such profiles might influence reactions to different adverse contexts.

To address these limitations, Pettit and colleagues developed and tested a 13-item assessment tool that captures five resilience domains, including general, physical, social, cognitive, and emotional resilience. The study authors also examined profiles of resilience and how they related to behaviors and mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their three studies, involving 181, 284 and 400 participants, provided support for a new four-stage resilience model. This included proactive components of resilience: anticipating and preparing for threats, and minimizing them, and reactive components: managing during a challenge, and “mending”: learning and recovering from it.

Generally, higher levels of proactive and reactive resilience were associated with better psychological outcomes, including lower depression and anxiety, as well as more appropriate behaviors, such as taking more preventative measures during the pandemic.

The results also revealed four distinct profiles, predicting a range of psychological outcomes:

The largest profile contained 46% of participants and featured both low resilience and low anticipation: this group experienced low anxiety and depression, but reported the highest impulsiveness and the least preventative behaviors (e.g., mask-wearing). 37% of participants reported moderate resilience and showed similar levels of proactive and reactive components. They experienced higher anxiety and depression, and the most risk-taking of all the profiles. Approximately 12% of the participants reported low resilience overall, and had high levels of anticipating versus low levels of mending. This group displayed the highest levels of anxiety and depression, and the lowest levels of well-being and coping effectiveness. Only 6% of individuals reported high resilience, and this group saw the lowest levels of anxiety, depression, and impulsiveness, and the highest levels of well-being, coping effectiveness, and preventative behavior. The research was limited by its reliance on self-reports of resilience from students and young adults; further research might validate the results across diverse populations and a wide range of stressful contexts. However, the authors suggest that the findings underscore the benefits of considering resilience profiles to understand how people deal with adverse contexts. They note that understanding how these resilience profiles relate to psychological and behavioral outcomes could lead to the development of tailored interventions.

The authors add: “Our research conceptualizes resilience as a dynamic process involving anticipation of adversity, efforts to minimize its impact, managing in the moment, and recovery. These processes vary over time and across different types of adversity (e.g., physical, social, cognitive, and emotional domains). Our findings indicate that distinct combinations of these processes – a profile of resilience – are associated with different psychological outcomes, suggesting the pattern of resilience processes is as important as its overall level.”

Author interview: https://plos.io/4rosTGh

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One: https://plos.io/4rrAwvM

Citation: Pettit JA, Beattie S, Roberts R, Callow N (2026) Mapping resilience: Development of the resilience process scales (RPS) and resilience profiles during adversity. PLoS One 21(2): e0341581. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0341581

Author countries: U.K.

Funding: JP Funded by Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarships II, Outlook Expeditions Grant number: BUK2133 Websites. KESS II: https://kess2.ac.uk/ Outlook Expeditions: https://outlookexpeditions.com/. Outlook Expeditions supported in data collection for Study 1 and by extension, Study 3’s pilot.

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