What doesn't kill us makes us stronger

Common sense would say that when adversity in one's life increases, negative effects on one's mental health often follow.

But as it turns out, the old cliché, "If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger," might actually have some truth to it.

Dr. Mark Seery, assistant professor of psychology, is working on a project that opposes previous research indicating that exposure to adversity typically predicts negative effects on mental health and well-being.

"There is an intuitive appeal to the idea that if people go through some sort of difficulty in life, it's easy to assume that they are just forever damaged by that in some way," Seery said.

Recently, Seery explored the idea that adversity can actually play a positive role in people's mental health in his study, "Whatever Does Not Kill Us: Cumulative Lifetime Adversity, Vulnerability and Resilience." University of California-Irvine professors E. Alison Holman, assistant professor of nursing sciences, and Roxane Cohen Silver, professor of psychology and social behavior and medicine, also authored the study.

According to Seery, the purpose of the study was to test if experiencing some negative events in life can actually contribute to subsequent resilience in one's life so that one would function better when faced with future adversity and be able to deal with the issue effectively.

Resilience, in psychology, is the positive capacity of people to cope with stress and adversity – for example, a death in the family or home foreclosure. The idea of resilience allows for adaptability to the sudden unfortunate change of events.

"In the face of all this existing evidence, it is possible for some truth to this additional idea that in the right circumstances, when having to deal with and manage difficulties, there could actually be some positive experience associated with that," Seery said. "Just knowing this kind of potential contradiction is out there made [the study] interesting."

The study examined a national sample of individuals who reported their lifetime history of adverse experience and several measures of current mental health and well-being.

Knowledge Networks Inc. surveyed a panel of 2,398 subjects, ranging in age from 18 to 101, who were assessed repeatedly from 2001 to 2004. The surveys were distributed online and in person.

"There are a wide variety of people from different income levels and educational backgrounds," Seery said. "The statistics ended up being somewhat complicated to work with, so just getting used to working with the data set was the single most [challenging aspect] for me."

The findings of the study revealed that a history of some lifetime adversity, relative to no adversity or high adversity, predicted lower global distress, lower functional impairment, lower post-traumatic stress symptoms, and higher life satisfaction.

Seery and his co-authors also found that people with a history of some lifetime adversity appeared less negatively affected by recent adverse events in comparison with other individuals.

"Experiencing life difficulties may contribute to the development of future resilience," Seery said. "Ultimately, the point is to understand how resilience works, and by doing that, it may eventually help inform researchers how to develop interventions to help people develop resilience."

While this data cannot establish any causation between resilience and lifetime adversity, Seery states that the evidence is consistent with the idea that in moderation, experiencing adversity in one's lifetime can contribute to development of resilience.

The American Psychological Association suggests that building and keeping close relationships with family members and friends can help build resilience. Another suggestion is acceptance of adverse events and learning to adapt to these situations.

Students can also benefit from the advances of Seery's study, as many struggle to adapt to coursework and the overall college experience.

"A lot of people tend to [experience] a bad event in life and feel worthless," said Christina Townsend, a junior psychology major. "And that's what sometimes leads them to [alcohol] and drugs."

Others believe that leaving home for the first time strongly affects the mental health and well-being of students.

"A lot of people have been cushioned in their life by their parents," said Melissa Magris, a junior psychology major. "Their parents do everything for them, so they don't know how to deal with their own issues when they happen in the future."

"Whatever Does Not Kill Us: Cumulative Lifetime Adversity, Vulnerability and Resilience" will be published in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.