Motivation and emotion/Book/2024/Ego resilience

Ego resilience:
What is ego resilience and how does it affect psychological functioning?

Multimedia presentation (3 min)

Overview

Scenario Packed staff meeting Of course you slept through your alarm, on today of all days when you have a big project proposal due that you have been working on for months. To make up for lost time you had to skip breakfast, while irritating you remind yourself that you are still going to make it on time and that it is better to remain calm and keep a clear head than to stress yourself out more than you need to. You arrive at work and are stopped by your supervisor who reminds you of the importance of this meeting but tells you that they are impressed by the work you have produced and assure you that you are going to do great. This reassurance makes you feel more at ease as you go over your notes to prepare one last time before the meeting. You make it to the meeting room when you realise no one is there, you check your emails and see a notice that the meeting room has changed due to technical issues in the original room. Now running late you have to rush into the room and setup while everyone is watching, your supervisor enters lasts giving you a thumbs up and taking their seat. As you are setting up you can feel every ones eyes on , you start to sweat and can't help but think of all the things that went wrong today. Once everything is started you take a second to compose yourself apologise to the room and begin your presentation. You easily got through your presentation looking confident and in control, your supervisor praises your efforts and you leave the meeting feeling really good about your work. Knowledge check 1 This is a good example of some having high ego-resilience: True False 2 In this example were the stressors Internal, External or Both? Internal External Both

Resilience is a term that almost everyone would have heard at one point or another. And while we understand that people who are resilient "don't sweat the small stuff" or are "tough" or any one of a hundred phrases that are often used to describe "resilient" people. But what is resiliency? Where does it come from? What does it do? And how does it effect my day to day life?

Ego resiliency is a personality trait that determines a persons ability to adapt, change and suppress their emotional responses based on their current situation (American Psychological Association, n.d.). People who are high in ego resilience have a strong sense of self that can be maintained throughout various stressful environments. People with high levels of ego resilience often have the ability to adapt to many situations and can bounce back quickly from traumatic and stressful events.

There are many factors that can effect a person's ego resiliency. Understanding what they are, how they work and how they effect you can help you manage stress and develop skills that will provide you with stronger ego-resiliency. Improving these skills and increasing ego-resiliency can help you to increase day-to-day satisfaction as tasks that may have seemed overwhelming before will be approached with a new perspective and difficulties that once may have left a lasting impact on you will be easier to overcome and adapt to.

There are two key functions that ego-resiliency presides over. That is keeping your personality stable over time and adjusting your personality to whatever environment you are in. Ego-resiliency allows you to modify your behaviour depending on your current circumstances while still maintaining your sense identity.

Psychologists have been studying ego resiliency for years trying to understand what things effect it and how it is developed. Currently the literature points to late adolescents and early adulthood as the primary stages in which ego-resiliency undergoes the most developmental change, however things such as self-efficacy and emotional expression can also have an effect on the way a person's ego-resiliency develops.

Focus questions: What is Ego resiliency? How is ego-resiliency developed? How does Ego resiliency impact your life?

What is Ego resiliency?

Ego-resiliency is a persons overall ability to manage how they respond to the stressful events that happen in their life. That stress can be from external sources such as work, family, or relationships. Or internal stress that a person applies to themselves, it can be caused be influenced by external sources but instead the person is setting the standards for themselves as opposed to other people.

It is also important to understand that it is not just a specific way of functioning but an important personality structure. It is described as a meta-trait used in higher-level organisation as it relates to the flexibility and adaptability of a persons personality as a whole.

A scale called ER89 Scale was designed to measure the ego-resiliency construct however the initial version of the scale was unidimensional as it was thought that ego-resiliency was a single factor structure (Block & Kremen, 1996). Many researchers were not satisfied with this which led to more research being conducted in to the topic and led to a more complex understanding and that there are actually two factors which were initially called Resiliency-Self Regulation and Resiliency-Openness. While the factors remained the same the names were changed to Optimal Regulation and Openness to Life Experiences.

Optimal Regulation measures the items that relate to agreeableness and the ability to self-regulate. Agreeableness is a term used often in the discussion of personality and measures used to assess personality constructs. It is a term used to describe how people are in their relationships with other people such as if they are likeable, pleasant and can be harmonious with other people. Self-regulation is simply the act of regulating your thoughts, feelings and emotions to act in conjunction with personal and social expectations in a positive and productive way. These traits relate to the stability of a persons emotions, behaviours, and personality across time.

The Openness to Life Experiences factor relates to openness and curiosity. It describes the plasticity of your personality. Whether you enjoy trying new things and engaging in new experience, or if you prefer sticking to routines and not venturing to far outside of your comfort zone.

How is ego-resiliency developed?

There are a number of factors that can affect the way a person develop ego-resiliency. Some of these factors we have no control over, such as certain genetic coding in our DNA which make us predisposed to develop certain traits and behaviours, other things such as experiences in our childhood and adolescents that we have no control over can also effect he way in which our ER develops. This does not mean we are completely helpless however, as if you are aware of the behaviours that lend themselves to higher ER and you have the ego-control to manage your behaviours and emotions you can develop the skills needed to adapt to stress and your situation better.

Biological Predictors of Ego-Resiliency

The S10 haplotype is a part of an individuals DNA

There have been a few genetic markers that researchers have identified as playing a role in the way that people respond to stressful stimuli and navigate challenging environments. The S10 haplotype along with the S allele has been identified as predictors of ER.

Stein et al. (2009) found that college students with the S allele reported having lower levels of ER based on a self report measure. While the findings of this study were sound trying to find a correlation between the S allele and ER at such a late stage and that the sample was made from college students only meant that the results were not generalisable.

Stein's work led Taylor et al. (2013) to conduct another study but this time on children who were identified to be in the S10 haplotype groups. These children were reported to have lower levels of ER compared to children in other groups. As ER in children is a stable internal process in children the S10 haplotype can be used to identify young children who may be more sensitive to stressful environments, this information can be used to help modify learning and social environments so that these children will respond better to the stimuli (Taylor et al., 2013).

Childhood Predictors of Ego-Resiliency

ER in children is assessed through observation of how the children interact with their surroundings and approach new challenges. Children with lower levels of ER tend to perseverate and can become uneasy or worried when presented with new stimuli, while those with higher levels of ER generally welcome the challenge and appear happy when mastering new skills and overcoming new challenges.

Parenting is the first major environmental predictor of ER. Children with parents who are nurturing, supportive and allow them to operate with relative independence are shown to have higher levels of ER by the age of seven (Farkas & Orosz, 2015).

Self efficacy is an important trait involved in the improvement of ego-resiliency

Developing a child's self-efficacy, which is the belief they have in themself that they can complete the task or behaviour, has also been shown to have a serious effect on the development of ER as if they believe they are not capable of overcoming the adversity and stress in their life then they will never make the behavioural changes needed to improve (Milioni et al., 2014).

Exposing children to age appropriate, manageable stressors allows parents to teach them coping strategies and show support so that they can develop problem solving skills in a safe and nurturing environment. If not children can become dependent on their parents for support in managing interpersonal relationships and coping skills.

Quiz Time! 1 Which of the following are predictors of ego-resilience? Academic Achievement Self Efficacy S10 Haplotype Exposure to extreme stress Parental nurturing 2 Indpendence in childhood is important for development of ER in children? True False

How to improve your Ego-Resiliency

Alessandri et al. (2016) determined that a "developmental window" opens for ER at around the age of 19, generally when most teenagers have finished high school. It is hypothesised that at this time they being looking at themselves as an adult as opposed to still being within the confines of their school environment. While ER can be developed at any stage in life this is when it is subject to the most change.

Positive emotions has more of an effect on human psychology than just making you happy or feel good. The experience of positive emotions can lead to many psychological benefits such as increased mental flexibility, creativity, openness to information and many others (Fredrickson, 2001). As this period can be a tumultuous and stressful time with an increase in negative emotions it is important to make sure that stressors are managed with adaptive coping strategies, the Broaden and Build model can increase a person's experience of positive emotions which in turn increase ER (Vulpe & Dafinoiu, 2012).

This also backs the claims made by Farkas & Orosz, (2015) in that a nurturing environment would increase positive emotions experience strengthening adaptive coping strategies and increasing openness to information from a young age.

Ego-control

While maintaining a healthy level of ego resiliency is important, to much control, can lead to a high threshold of impulse expression and a tendency to internalize problems which can lead to an increased risk of depression and anxiety.

However if your ego-control is too low the effects are reversed. You can expect a low threshold for impulse expression and externalizing your problems which can manifest in ways such as increased aggression, or excessive impulsiveness and in extreme cases can increase risk of committing crime (Letzring et al., 2005).

How does Ego resiliency impact your life?

The Quality of Life Questionnaire is used in conjunction with other measures

Ego-resiliency has shown to have a significant effect on quality of life (QOL) and life satisfaction (LS). The ability to adapt has long been a trait that greatly benefits those that are good at it. Charles Darwin coined the term Natural Selection in 1859 in which he described the way in which organism that are more adapted to their environment are more likely to survive. The adaptations that Charles Darwin discusses are far slower and far less intentional than what we talk about when discussing ego-resiliency, this is due to humanities gift of higher order thinking.

A study was conducted by Pyszkowska (2020) in which personality traits were tested against internal resources one of which is ego-resiliency as predictors of quality of life. To assess theses traits the ER89 scale and the Quality of Life Questionnaire and Satisfaction with Life Scales were used.

This study identified three personality clusters which were labelled Gorillas, Sheep and Elephants. The Elephant personality cluster had the highest ER amongst the three personality clusters with Sheep coming in second and Gorillas coming last. When completing the Quality of Life Questionnaire it was found that Elephants would score highest in both QOL and LS, followed again by Sheep and finally the Gorilla. To better understand the importance of these findings and how they relate to the importance of ER in determining QOL and LS, we will look deeper in to the traits that defined the Gorilla personality cluster. But first it is important to define Ego-control as it plays an important role in regulating internal processes and behaviour.

The traits described for those with low ego-control are some of the traits associated with Pyszkowska (2020) Gorilla personality cluster which are underlined by things such as low social self-esteem combined with emotionality and social boldness which leads to the increase in aggressive behaviours due to the lack of internal resources (ER among others) and resources that assist in the managements of interpersonal relationships.

Conclusion

Ego-resiliency is an internal process that determines how people deal with stress, overcome adversity and react to the challenges present in day to day life. The development of ego-resiliency is important as higher levels of ego-resiliency have been shown to increase both quality of life and life satisfaction amongst young adults. Ego-resiliency can be effected by many factors both genetic and environmental/developmental. Certain variations in DNA such as the presence of the S allele and the S10 haplotype which are part of the serotonin transporter gene have been shown to predict levels of ego-resiliency in children and adolescence. However the environment in which you grow up and the way that you are nurtured by your parents is a more likely predictor of ego-resiliency, growing up in highly stressful environments with overbearing or neglectful parents has been shown to increase the use of maladaptive coping mechanisms and also reduces the amount of positive emotions experienced. A lack of ego-resiliency tends to lead to externalising aggressive behaviours and has shown to increase the risk of criminal behaviour. While ego-resiliency has an optimal window for development , being aware of who you are and why you are acting the way you are can be a good step in the right direction to controlling impulses which will help break out of habits holding you back. The use of better coping mechanisms will also help increase your levels of ego-resiliency.

See also

• Academic resilience (Book chapter, 2021)
• Allele (Wikipedia)
• Ego death (Book chapter, 2023)
• DNA (Wikipedia)
• Psychological resilience (Wikipedia)

References

Alessandri, G., Eisenberg, N., Vecchione, M., Caprara, G. V., & Milioni, M. (2016). Ego-resiliency development from late adolescence to emerging adulthood: A ten-year longitudinal study. Journal of Adolescence, 50, 91–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.05.004

Alessandri, G., Vecchio, G., Steca, P., & Caprara, G. (2007). A REVISED VERSION OF KREMEN AND BLOCK’S EGO RESILIENCY SCALE IN AN ITALIAN SAMPLE MARIA GIOVANNA CAPRARA (pp. 165–183). TPM.

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). APA Dictionary of Psychology. Dictionary.apa.org. https://dictionary.apa.org/ego-resiliency

Block, J., & Kremen, A. M. (1996). IQ and ego-resiliency: Conceptual and empirical connections and separateness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(2), 349–361. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.70.2.349

Dunkel, C. S., van der Linden, D., Kawamoto, T., & Oshio, A. (2021). The General Factor of Personality as Ego-Resiliency. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.741462

Farkas, D., & Orosz, G. (2015). Ego-Resiliency Reloaded: A Three-Component Model of General Resiliency. PLOS ONE, 10(3), e0120883. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0120883

Fredrickson, B. (2001). The Role of Positive Emotions in Positive Psychology. The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions. The American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3122271/

Jeannot Mpanya Mpanya, Ali Kasta Mukendi, Mustafa Seker, & Talha Turhan. (2022). EXAMINATION OF EGO RESILIENCE. Anadolu Akademi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 4(2), 123–130. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/anadoluakademi/issue/72937/1185342

Kołodziej-Zaleska, A., Ilska, M., Brandt-Salmeri, A., Jazłowska, A., & Przybyła-Basista, H. (2023). How to measure ego-resiliency in the face of various life-changing crises: Measurement invariance, convergent and discriminant validity and reliability of the Polish version of the Revised Ego-Resiliency Scale (ER89-R12). PeerJ, 11, e14499. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14499

Letzring, T. D., Block, J., & Funder, D. C. (2005). Ego-control and ego-resiliency: Generalization of self-report scales based on personality descriptions from acquaintances, clinicians, and the self. Journal of Research in Personality, 39(4), 395–422. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2004.06.003

Miguel-Alvaro, A., M. Mar Gómez-Gutiérrez, Hornillos, C., M. José Hernández-Lloreda, & Crespo, M. (2023). Implementation and Effects of the Broad-Minded Affective Coping (BMAC) Technique: a Pilot Study. International Journal of Cognitive Therapy, 16(2), 266–284. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41811-023-00163-3

Milioni, M., Alessandri, G., Eisenberg, N., Castellani, V., Zuffianò, A., Vecchione, M., & Caprara, G. V. (2014). Reciprocal Relations Between Emotional Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Ego-Resiliency Across Time. Journal of Personality, 83(5), 552–563. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12131

Pyszkowska, A. (2020). Personality predictors of self-compassion, ego-resiliency and psychological flexibility in the context of quality of life. Personality and Individual Differences, 161, 109932. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.109932

Stein, M. B., Campbell-Sills, L., & Gelernter, J. (2009). Genetic variation in 5HTTLPR is associated with emotional resilience. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics, 150B(7), 900–906. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajmg.b.30916

Taylor, Z. E., Sulik, M. J., Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., Silva, K. M., Lemery-Chalfant, K., Stover, D. A., & Verrelli, B. C. (2013). Development of Ego-resiliency: Relations to Observed Parenting and Polymorphisms in the Serotonin Transporter Gene During Early Childhood. Social Development, 23(3), 433–450. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12041

Vulpe, A., & Dafinoiu, I. (2012). Positive emotions, coping strategies and ego-resiliency: A mediation model. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 33, 308–312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.01.133

External links

• Characteristics of Ego Strength (verywellmind.com)
• 'Ego-Strength' versus 'Resilience' Part 1 (TheNegativePsychologist.com)
• Simple Steps for Strengthening Your Brain's Circuits of Resilience (youtube.com)