THESIS

Resilience as the Bright Side of Trauma: The Predictive Roles of Emotion Regulation, Social Support and Coping Style

Resilience is as a capacity of a person to successfully adapt to challenging life events. Resilience helps individuals to recover after an adversity and maintain their healthy psychological functioning. This study examines the predictive factors of resilience and the mediating role of trauma between resilience and 3 predictive factors; namely, cognitive reappraisal, social support and adaptive coping style.

ABSTRACT

Trauma is a widely studied concept that has a remarkable impact on mental health. On the
other hand, resilience is the process of successfully adapting to challenging life events.
Regarding resilience as a key factor to cope with traumatic symptoms, it is critical to
understand its components. The purpose of this study is to explore underlying mechanisms of
resilience through traumatic experiences. In this context; social support, cognitive reappraisal,
and adaptive coping skills are examined under the predictor factors of resilience. Moreover,
trauma is taken into the consideration as a mediator variable. In this study, socio-demographic
form, Traumatic Stress Symptom Scale, Coping Strategy Indicator, Multidimensional Scale of
Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) and Resilience
Scale for Adults were used as measurement tools. A Multivariate Analysis of Variance
(MANOVA), Pearson Correlations, Hierarchical Regression Analysis, Independent t-tests and
three Mediation Analyses were conducted for examining research questions. The results
showed that social support, cognitive reappraisal, and adaptive coping predicts resilience.
Social support and cognitive reappraisal are mediating the relationship between trauma and
resilience. However, adaptive coping skills have no indirect effect for the relationship
between trauma and resilience. Regarding gender and marital status, being female and having
a romantic relationship are found as socio-demographic factors to increase resiliency. These
findings suggested that individuals who have relevant social support resources, cognitive
reappraisal skills, and adaptive coping capacity are more likely to become resilient.

Key Words: Resilience, Trauma, Emotion Regulation, Coping, Social Support