An Exploration of Trait Resilience’s Influence on Graduate Students’ Tendency to Actively Cope with Stress
Ming-hui Li, Department of Human Services and Counseling, The School of Education, Kimmy Ramotar, Graduate Student, The School of Education
Abstract
Trait resilience reflects individuals’ ability to adapt well to stressful situations. While researchers have studied the nature of trait resilience, its relationship with coping over time has not been adequately investigated. This study addressed the relationships among active coping, trait resilience, and the two factors that make up trait resilience, over a three-week period in a sample of 128 graduate students. Data was collected using a questionnaire that consists of three sections: demographic information, the Resilience Scale (RS: Wagnild & Young, 1993), and the Coping Strategy Indicator (CSI: Amirkhan, 1990). Procedures of factor analysis, repeated-measures ANOVA, and multiple regression were applied to analyze data. Findings showed that trait resilience was constantly composed of a solution-related factor and a non-solution-related factor over the three-week period. Trait resilience and the solution-related factor were unstable over the period; whereas the non-solution-related factor was stable over the period. Trait resilience and the non-solution-related factor could each predict active coping, but only in the initial stage of coping process (i.e., within two days after a stressful situation occurred). In the latter stage of coping process, neither trait resilience nor its factors could predict active coping. The application of trait resilience and its factors to counseling clients will be discussed.