Predictors and Parameters of Resilience to Loss:

Toward an Individual Differences Model

Anthony D. Mancini and George A. Bonanno

Columbia University

ABSTRACT Although there is marked variation in how people cope

with interpersonal loss, there is growing recognition that most people
manage this extremely stressful experience with minimal to no impact on
their daily functioning (G. A. Bonanno, 2004). What gives rise to this
resilient capacity? In this paper, we provide an operational definition of
resilience as a specific trajectory of psychological outcome and describe
how the resilient trajectory differs from other trajectories of response to
loss. We review recent data on individual differences in resilience to loss,
including self-enhancing biases, repressive coping, a priori beliefs, identity
continuity and complexity, dismissive attachment, positive emotions, and
comfort from positive memories. We integrate these individual differences
in a hypothesized model of resilience, focusing on their role in appraisal
processes and the use of social resources. We conclude by considering
potential cultural constraints on resilience and future research directions.

It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
—Elizabeth Bishop

People we are close to die. This is an unfortunate but inevitable fact

of life virtually all of us must face. Despite the near universality of
this experience, it has long been assumed that bereavement almost
always results in significant and sometimes incapacitating distress.

The research described in this article was supported by National Institutes of Health
Grants R29-MH57274 (to George A. Bonanno).
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Anthony D. Man-
cini, Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia
University, 525 West 120th Street, Box 102, New York, NY 10027. E-mail: adm22
@columbia.edu.

Journal of Personality 77:6, December 2009

r 2009, Copyright the Authors
Journal compilation r 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2009.00601.x
1806 Mancini & Bonanno

Indeed, the absence of distress after loss has in itself been considered
pathological and a likely harbinger of future difficulties (Middleton,
Moylan, Raphael, Burnett, & Martinek, 1993). Persons who fail to
display the expected distress reaction were considered to be suppress-
ing their grief (Middleton et al., 1993) or to lack an attachment to
their spouse (Fraley & Shaver, 1999). Alternately, healthy adjustment
to loss was often ascribed to exceptional strength and thus thought to
be relatively rare. In stark contrast to these extreme views, a growing
body of research now demonstrates that most bereaved persons dis-
play stable, healthy levels of psychological and physical functioning
as well as the capacity for generative experiences and positive emo-
tions even relatively soon after a loss (Bonanno, 2004).
A large number of contextual and situational factors potentially con-
tribute to the likelihood of a resilient outcome (Bonanno & Mancini,
2008). These include characteristics of the loss and the person’s envi-
ronment. However, our primary concern in this article is person-cen-
tered factors or individual differences. Because of the dearth of
prospective studies of bereavement, our understanding of these factors
is still evolving. Nevertheless, convergent evidence has now identified a
number of individual difference variables that are associated with a re-
silient trajectory. These include self-enhancing biases, attachment style,
repressive coping, a priori beliefs, identity continuity and complexity,
and positive emotions (Bonanno, Field, Kovacevic, & Kaltman, 2002;
Fraley & Bonanno, 2004; Keltner & Bonanno, 1997). These factors may
interact with one another and with environmental factors in complex
ways that we are only beginning to understand. Surprisingly, some fac-
tors that promote resilience to loss may be maladaptive in other con-
texts, whereas other factors are more broadly adaptive. In this paper, we
first provide an operational definition of resilience and describe how it
differs from other trajectories of response to loss. We describe evidence
for its prevalence and for the heterogeneous individual differences as-
sociated with resilience. We then integrate these individual differences
into a proposed model of resilience, considering shared mechanisms re-
lated to appraisal processes, coping strategies, and the use of exogenous
resources, such as social support.

Defining Resilience to Loss

Although people may possess characteristics associated with resil-
ience, whether people actually exhibit resilience can only be defined
Predictors and Parameters of Loss 1807

in terms of their level of adjustment after the stressor event. Resil-

ience cannot be defined in the abstract or applied to individuals in
the absence of an extremely aversive experience, such as loss. Thus, it
is uninformative, if not meaningless in this framework, to describe
someone as having a resilient personality because resilience is defined
ex post facto. Indeed, the psychological study of resilience mandates
that we operationally define resilience as an outcome following a
highly stressful event and then document the factors that appear to
promote or detract from that outcome.
Another critical point is that resilience can be reliably distin-
guished from the two other most prevalent patterns following loss:
chronic dysfunction (acute, persistent, and disabling symptoms) and
recovery (acute symptoms that gradually subside; Bonanno, 2004).
These trajectories are illustrated graphically in Figure 1. It can be
readily observed that resilience and chronic dysfunction are mark-
edly different reactions, but the distinction between resilience and
recovery is more subtle and has only recently been firmly established.
An initial study focused on how people coped with the premature
---- Low ------------- medium -------------- high ----
Distress/Depression

Chronic Grief

Recovery

Resilience

Spouse’s death 1 year later 2 years later

Figure 1
Prototypical patterns of disruption in normal functioning across time
after bereavement. Reproduced with permission from Bonanno, G. A.
(2004). Loss, trauma, and human resilience: Have we underestimated
the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events? Amer-
ican Psychologist, 59, 20–28.
1808 Mancini & Bonanno

death of a spouse at midlife (Bonanno, Keltner, Holen, & Horowitz,

1995). Although using relatively small samples, this study demon-
strated that a stable pattern of low distress over time, or resilience,
could be clearly distinguished from the more conventionally under-
stood pattern of recovery. That is, bereaved persons who exhibit the
recovery pattern struggle with moderate levels of symptoms and ex-
perience difficulties carrying out their normal tasks at work or in the
care of loved ones, but they somehow manage to struggle through
these tasks and slowly begin to return to their preloss level of func-
tioning, usually over a period of 1 or 2 years. By contrast, persons
who exhibit resilience seem to be able to go on with their lives with
minimal or no apparent disruptions in functioning.
More recent studies have provided additional evidence for the dis-
tinction between resilience and recovery using samples involving differ-
ent types of loss. For example, Bonanno, Moskowitz, Papa, and
Folkman (2005) identified these trajectories in samples of bereaved par-
ents, bereaved spouses, and bereaved gay men. They also obtained
anonymous ratings of participants’ adjustment from their close friends
and showed that resilient individuals were rated by their friends as better
adjusted prior to the loss than more symptomatic bereaved individuals
and than a comparable sample of nonbereaved (i.e., married) people.
We would emphasize that the resilient pattern does not imply that
such persons experience no upset related to the loss or aversive event,
but rather that their overall level of functioning is essentially pre-
served. For example, in a sample of bereaved individuals who were
followed from several years prior to the death of their spouse to sev-
eral years afterwards, almost half showed no clinical depression at
any point in the study (Bonanno, Wortman, et al., 2002). However,
when questioned about their experiences soon after the loss, about
75% of those showing a resilient outcome trajectory reported expe-
riencing intense yearning (painful waves of missing spouse) as well as
pangs of intense grief at some point in the earliest months of be-
reavement. What is more, all but one of the bereaved people showing
the resilient trajectory reported having experienced intrusive and un-
bidden thoughts about the loss that they could not get out of their
mind and that they found themselves ruminating about or going over
and over what happened when the spouse died in the earliest months
of bereavement. The key difference here is that resilient individuals
are able to manage these difficult experiences in such a manner that
they do not interfere with their ability to maintain functioning.
Predictors and Parameters of Loss 1809

The Prevalence of Resilience

The bereavement literature has long provided evidence that bereaved
persons do sometimes show a striking absence of dysfunction, though
only recently has this been viewed as evidence for resilience. For ex-
ample, researchers in one earlier study examined a number of differ-
ent grief symptoms and reactions using survey data from 350 widows
and widowers (Zisook & Shuchter, 1993). At 2 months after the loss,
70% of their sample reported that they found it ‘‘hard to believe’’
that their spouses had actually died. However, more extreme cogni-
tive difficulties were only exhibited by a considerably smaller portion
of the sample. Even in the earliest point of bereavement, 2 months
after the death of their spouse, only about one fifth or fewer of the
bereaved participants reported that they had difficulties concentrat-
ing (20%) or making decisions (17%). Furthermore, 76% of be-
reaved persons failed to meet criteria for major depression at 2
months and 86% at 25 months postloss. Again, although these data
indicate that many bereaved people struggle with disruptions in their
functioning in the first months after a loss, a substantial proportion
do not, providing evidence for resilience to loss.
More recent and compelling evidence for the prevalence of resil-
ience came from the Changing Lives of Older Couples (CLOC) study,
a study of spousal bereavement in late life (Mancini, Pressman, &
Bonanno, 2006). The resilient bereaved in this study comprised 46%
of the sample and showed little or no depression at each assessment
point in the study, beginning on average 3 years prior to the death of
a spouse and continuing through 18 months after the spouse’s death
(Bonanno, Wortman, et al., 2002). Resilient participants also exhib-
ited few grief symptoms (e.g., yearning) during bereavement. What is
more, the prevalence of resilience remained relatively constant re-
gardless of whether the trajectory was defined by the simple absence
of change from pre- to postbereavement or by more emergent statis-
tical approaches, such as hierarchical cluster analysis, nonlinear
mixed model analysis, or latent class analyses (Burke, Shrout, &
Bolger, 2007; Mancini & Bonanno, 2008b). Additional evidence for
the prevalence of resilience came from research mentioned earlier on
bereaved spouses, bereaved parents, and bereaved gay men (Bon-
anno, Moskowitz, et al., 2005). Using normative comparisons to
nonbereaved persons, this study showed that resilience was evidenced
in at least half of bereaved persons across both samples.
1810 Mancini & Bonanno

Individual Differences Associated with Resilience

to Loss
Why are some people able to move on with their lives and maintain
their levels of functioning relatively soon after the loss, whereas oth-
ers struggle to a greater extent and, in some cases, become mired in
debilitating feelings of yearning and emptiness? In other words, what
factors contribute to the likelihood of a resilient response to loss? In
addition to the many situational and contextual factors, it appears
that there are at least two different styles of coping that predict a
resilient outcome. Elsewhere we have labeled these flexible adapta-
tion and pragmatic coping (Bonanno, 2005; Bonanno & Mancini,
2008; Mancini & Bonanno, 2006). The idea of pragmatic coping
stems from the fact that stressful life events, like the death of a
spouse, often pose highly specific coping demands. Successfully
meeting these demands may require a highly pragmatic or ‘‘what-
ever it takes’’ approach that is single minded and goal directed.
Although pragmatic coping can arise in response to the situational
demands, it has also been observed as a consequence of relatively
rigid personality characteristics, such as repressive coping, dismissive
attachment, and the habitual use of self-enhancing attributions and
biases. A compelling finding with these pragmatic styles is that,
although they have been associated with some negative features (e.g.,
narcissism, health consequences), they consistently predict superior
adjustment to loss and other potentially traumatic life events.
We stress however, that most people capable of resilience to adver-
sity are genuinely healthy people who appear to possess a capacity for
behavioral elasticity or flexible adaptation to impinging challenges. The
hallmark of this characteristic is the capacity to shape and adapt be-
havior to the demands of a given stressor event. A number of individual
differences may contribute to this kind of flexible adaptation. For ex-
ample, resilience to loss has also been associated with more favorable
preexisting beliefs (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Tomaka & Blascovich,
1994), positive emotions (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997), and the ability to
derive comfort from positive memories (Bonanno, Wortman, & Nesse,
2004). Next we consider in turn these individual difference variables.

Repressive Coping

A perhaps unlikely source of resilience is found among persons who

habitually employ coping mechanisms designed to repress negative
Predictors and Parameters of Loss 1811

affects. Repressive coping is marked by simultaneous avoidance of

threatening or negative stimuli and increased physiological arousal
in response to that stimuli (e.g. Bonanno & Singer, 1990; Hock &
Krohne, 2004; Tomarken & Davidson, 1994). Under stressful cir-
cumstances, repressive copers tend to report minimal or no feelings
of distress but physiological measures reveal marked autonomic
arousal (Weinberger, Schwartz, & Davidson, 1979). This kind of
dissociation from one’s emotions or internal states has historically
been seen as maladaptive (Bowlby, 1980; Osterweis, Solomon, &
Green, 1984), and may be associated with long-term health costs
(Bonanno & Singer, 1990; King, Taylor, Albright, & Haskell, 1990).
However, a growing literature has linked these same tendencies to
adaptation to loss and to other forms of adversity. For example,
repressors tend to show relatively little grief or distress at any point
across 5 years of bereavement, a pattern consistent with resilience
(Bonanno & Field, 2001; Bonanno et al., 1995). More recent work
has shown that repressive coping in bereaved persons is not only
associated with lower symptoms but also fewer reported health
problems and higher ratings of adjustment by close friends (Coif-
man, Bonanno, Ray, & Gross, 2007). Moreover, the benefits of re-
pressive coping are also apparent among nonbereaved controls,
suggesting a general adaptive advantage for repressors.
Why would repressive coping facilitate adaptive coping with loss?
One important point is that repressive coping is largely an automatic
process in which the person effortlessly orients away from threaten-
ing stimuli (Bonanno, Davis, Singer, & Schwartz, 1991). Thus, re-
pressive coping is distinct from more conscious and effortful
strategies to manage aversive thoughts and feelings, such as thought
suppression or deliberate cognitive avoidance (Bonanno et al., 1995).
Largely because it requires significant cognitive resources, suppres-
sion has been associated with a variety of untoward consequences in
interpersonal, physiological, and emotional functioning (Gross &
John, 2003; Gross & Levenson, 1993, 1997). By contrast, repressive
coping appears to mitigate the potentially overwhelming and threat-
ening nature of aversive experiences without exacting a cost in cog-
nitive resources. By easing the threatening nature of their experience,
repressors may be more likely to employ active problem-focused
coping rather than passive emotion-focused coping (Lazarus &
Folkman, 1984; Olff, Langeland, & Gersons, 2005), which would
be particularly ineffective in the context of bereavement. Indeed,
1812 Mancini & Bonanno

when confronted with highly threatening stimuli, repressors report

more active rather than passive coping strategies (Langens &
Moerth, 2003).

Attachment Dynamics

Another factor that appears to contribute to resilience to loss is at-

tachment dynamics, which describes the impact of early caregiving
experiences on adult relationships. Bowlby’s (1980) early theorizing
first established attachment theory as a basic explanatory framework
for understanding how people cope with loss. Since that time, a
prime focus of bereavement theorists has been the degree to which
avoidance characterizes a person’s relationships with others. This
avoidance component is usually conceptualized within a two-dimen-
sional model contrasting attachment-related preoccupation or anx-
iety with the dismissive characteristics associated with attachment
avoidance (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; Fraley & Shaver, 2000).
People who are high on attachment-related avoidance tend to min-
imize interpersonal intimacy and to withdraw from close others,
whereas those who are low on this dimension tend to feel more
comfortable relying on others (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007). By con-
trast, people with high levels of attachment-related anxiety are in-
tensely concerned with maintaining proximity to and ensuring the
availability of close others, whereas people low on this dimension are
able to trust in the availability and responsiveness of others
(Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007). Persons low on both dimensions are
generally thought to be securely attached.
Early speculations on the role of attachment dynamics in coping
with loss postulated that avoidant attachment would be associated
with less pronounced grief symptoms and distress soon after the loss
(Bowlby, 1980) but also that avoidant individuals would be at sub-
stantial risk for subsequent difficulties, a hypothesized ‘‘delayed’’
pattern of grief (Middleton et al., 1993). Despite numerous investi-
gations of this question, no solid evidence has been proffered for
delayed grief (Bonanno & Field, 2001). As the notion of delayed
grief has increasingly vanished in the mist, a more nuanced under-
standing of the role of attachment avoidance has begun to take its
place. In this regard, it is important to note that the two-dimensional
conceptualization of attachment permits the derivation of four
distinct patterns of attachment, which correspond to whether the
Predictors and Parameters of Loss 1813

person is high or low on anxiety and avoidance. A critical distinction

to consider is between dismissing avoidance (high avoidance, low
anxiety) and fearful avoidance (high avoidance, high anxiety; Fraley,
Davis, & Shaver, 1998). Dismissingly avoidant persons are generally
not preoccupied with attachment concerns and view themselves as
independent and self-reliant, whereas those who are fearfully avoid-
ant tend to use avoidance as a way of quelling intense anxiety about
relationships with close others. If this distinction is not made, avoid-
ant individuals can appear to have coping deficits because dismissing
avoidance is conflated with fearful avoidance (Fraley et al., 1998).
Consistent with the more nuanced perspective, Fraley and Bonanno
(2004) found clear evidence for the adaptive benefits of dismissing
avoidance in a recent longitudinal study of bereaved spouses and
parents. Specifically, bereaved persons with a dismissing avoidant
attachment pattern had relatively few symptoms across bereavement
and showed a similar trajectory over time as did persons with a secure
attachment style (low avoidance, low anxiety). By contrast, fearful
avoidant individuals had elevated grief symptoms across time.
Does the quality of the relationship to the deceased moderate the
impact of attachment style on distress after loss? This issue could be
particularly pertinent to spousal loss, because of the potential vari-
ation in the degree to which the deceased spouse served as a central
attachment figure to the bereaved person (Cassidy & Shaver, 1999).
In distressed marriages, for example, the attachment functions
served by the spouse would be likely to be far more circumscribed
than in nondistressed marriages. For this reason, it is possible that
the negative effects of anxious attachment are only present in the
context of high levels of marital satisfaction, which would presum-
ably indicate that the deceased served important attachment func-
tions. Furthermore, it is also possible that attachment avoidance, in
the context of a positive marital relationship, would facilitate the
bereaved person’s separation from the deceased and thus contribute
to a more resilient response to loss.
In a recent longitudinal study of bereaved spouses, we found evidence
to support each of these perspectives (Mancini, Robinaugh, Shear, &
Bonanno, 2009). First, attachment anxiety was predictive of increased
symptoms of bereavement-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
from 4 to 18 months postloss, but this effect was observed primarily
among participants who reported a positive marital relationship.
The opposite pattern was observed for attachment avoidance. High
1814 Mancini & Bonanno

avoidance individuals who had a favorable marital relationship tended

to experience reductions in PTSD from 4 to 18 months.

Self-Enhancing Biases

Another contributing factor to the likelihood of a resilient outcome

in response to loss is trait self-enhancement. Historically, a positive
view of the self has been viewed as a basic component of health and
well-being, but only when coupled with a realistic appreciation of
one’s personal limitations and negative characteristics (Allport,
1937; Erikson, 1950; Maslow, 1950; Vaillant, 1977). However,
research has demonstrated that a dispositional tendency to
view the self in highly favorable and even unrealistic terms (trait
self-enhancement) is often associated with psychological adjustment
(Taylor & Brown, 1988, 1994). Moreover, although there is also ev-
idence that self-enhancement is associated with real social costs
(Paulhus, 1998), self-enhancers appear to cope particularly well with
extreme adversity (Bonanno, Field, et al., 2002; Bonanno, Rennicke,
& Dekel, 2005; Taylor & Armor, 1996). These benefits were revealed
in a study examining traumatic and nontraumatic spousal loss (Bon-
anno, Field, et al., 2002). In two studies, self-enhancement predicted
lower grief symptoms at multiple intervals across bereavement and
using different assessments of symptoms.
How does self-enhancement facilitate coping and promote resil-
ience to loss? Because the aversive experience of loss represents a
potential threat to the self and may induce feelings of vulnerability
and weakness, bereaved persons are likely motivated to restore their
sense of control over the event and their sense of optimism about the
future (Taylor & Armor, 1996). Self-enhancing cognitions could fa-
cilitate this process, through downward social comparisons to others
who are less fortunate (Helgeson & Taylor, 1993) or through re-
framing the aversive experience as providing unexpected benefits
(Taylor, Wood, & Lichtman, 1983). Moreover, although self-en-
hancement can entail social liabilities, it also may play a role in
whether the bereaved person draws effectively on social supports and
has opportunities to disclose thoughts and feelings related to the
event. An ample literature has shown the beneficial effects of self-
disclosure after one experiences an acute stressor (Lepore, Silver,
Wortman, & Wayment, 1996). Consistent with this notion, a previ-
ous study of high-exposure survivors of the 9/11 attacks found that
Predictors and Parameters of Loss 1815

self-enhancement’s beneficial effects on coping are mediated by

perceived constraints against disclosing distressing experiences
(Bonanno, Rennicke, et al., 2005). Indeed, the beneficial effects of
self-disclosure appear to depend on whether social resources are
perceived as available and interested in hearing one’s concerns. To
the degree that others are perceived as unwilling or unavailable, the
beneficial effects of self-disclosure are obviated (e.g., Lepore, Ragan,
& Jones, 2000). Interestingly, self-enhancers are particularly likely to
view their friends as willing and able to listen to their deepest worries
and concerns, even if this perception is at odds with friends’ actual
behavior (Goorin & Bonanno, 2008).

Worldviews (a Priori Beliefs)

A more broadly beneficial component of resilience to loss is favor-

able a priori beliefs or worldviews, which comprise our most abstract
and generalized conceptions of the degree that life is just, fair, pre-
dictable, and benevolent ( Janoff-Bulman, 1992; Park & Folkman,
1997; Rubin & Peplau, 1975). Because worldview beliefs may be in-
fluenced by the impact of loss or other stressful events ( Janoff-Bul-
man, 1992; Schwartzberg & Janoff-Bulman, 1991), it has historically
been difficult to untangle their effects on coping. The only method-
ological solution to this difficulty is to employ a prospective design
that includes preloss measures of worldviews. To our knowledge, the
only study to meet this condition was the CLOC study, described
earlier, which obtained baseline data from a representative sample of
older couples and married individuals and then invited persons who
subsequently suffered a loss to participate in follow-up interviews at
6 and 18 months of bereavement. Using these data to map trajec-
tories of bereavement outcome, Bonanno, Wortman, et al. (2002)
identified four primary trajectories (resilience, recovery, chronic
grief, and chronic depression), each associated with unique predic-
tors.
Among the preloss predictors of resilience were stronger beliefs in
the world’s justice and more accepting attitudes toward death. We
recently provided additional confirmation for the role of a priori
beliefs by showing that favorable worldviews were related to adjust-
ment over time only among bereaved persons and not among non-
bereaved controls (Mancini & Bonanno, 2008a). Together, these
findings indicated that more positive beliefs in a just world and
1816 Mancini & Bonanno

greater acceptance of death may help bereaved persons accommo-

date the reality of the loss into their existing worldviews, blunting the
potentially threatening nature of loss. In addition, it may well be the
case that more benign beliefs about death would be of particular
adaptive significance in the context of loss because such beliefs could
ease the potentially deleterious effects of death anxiety so widely
demonstrated by terror management theorists (e.g., Pyszczynski,
Greenberg, Solomon, Arndt, & Schimel, 2004).
Do favorable worldviews, when measured after the loss, enhance
the likelihood of resilience? A recent investigation indicates that, in
the main, they do not (Mancini & Bonanno, 2008a). Although beliefs
in the world’s benevolence and self-worth showed cross-sectional re-
lationships with grief and PTSD at 4 and 18 months postloss (Man-
cini & Bonanno, 2008a), only beliefs about the self at 4 months
predicted later symptoms at 18 months after controlling for 4-month
symptoms. This suggests that negative worldviews are an associated
feature of more serious grief reactions but do not serve to maintain
grief reactions or to further resilient responses to loss. Rather, avail-
able evidence suggests that a priori beliefs primarily operate on initial
appraisals of the experience of loss. After factoring in their effects on
initial coping and grief reactions, a priori beliefs do not appear to
exert further incremental effects (Mancini & Bonanno, 2008a).
Nevertheless, it is clear that initial appraisals have a substantial
impact on coping in response to stressors (Lazarus & Folkman,
1984; Park & Folkman, 1997). A critical issue is whether the stressor
is seen as challenging (within one’s ability to cope) or threatening
(exceeding one’s ability to cope; e.g., Tomaka, Blascovich, Kelsey, &
Leitten, 1993). It would appear that bereaved persons with more fa-
vorable preloss worldviews would be able to understand the loss as a
specific negative event and would be less likely to overgeneralize to
broader notions of the world and the self. In this way, the potentially
threatening nature of bereavement would be mitigated. By contrast,
for persons with more negative preloss worldviews, the experience of
loss might confirm that worldview and enhance a feeling that events
are out of one’s control and beyond one’s ability to manage. Such
appraisals influence the coping strategies used to manage stressful
situations and thus determine their effectiveness (Lazarus & Folk-
man, 1984). For example, more threatening appraisals of stressors
are associated with more negative emotion, greater physiological re-
activity (Tomaka et al., 1993), and less adaptive neuroendocrine
Predictors and Parameters of Loss 1817

functioning (Epel, McEwen, & Ickovics, 1998). As a result, apprais-

als of threat may lead to an excessive reliance on short-term emo-
tion-focused coping strategies and a corresponding neglect of
problem-focused coping (Olff et al., 2005). Over time, these coping
deficits may have particularly deleterious effects in the context of
bereavement, a complex stressor that requires a range of strategies
for effective coping.

Identity Continuity and Complexity

Views of the self are another factor that appear to influence coping
and are associated with resilience to loss (Mancini & Bonanno,
2006). The emotional upheaval surrounding the loss of a loved one
may be particularly damaging to a person’s underlying sense of
identity. Familiar routines or rituals are often disrupted, and social
roles may be dramatically changed. Persons with the most serious
forms of grief sometimes report that they feel as if a piece of them is
missing, as if the self is incomplete (Shuchter & Zisook, 1993). Sim-
ilarly, traumatized individuals commonly experience the self as dam-
aged or inferior (Brewin, 2003). By contrast, resilient individuals
appear to experience minimal change in their sense of themselves
(Bonanno, Papa, & O’Neill, 2001). We have argued that resilient
persons seem to experience an underlying continuity in the self and,
armed with that continuity, are better able to respond flexibly to the
demands of a changed world (Mancini & Bonanno, 2006).
This perspective found clear support in a recent preliminary lon-
gitudinal study in which bereaved individuals and nonbereaved con-
trols participated in a collaborative task designed to elicit the
identity traits that they use to define themselves (Galatzer-Levy,
Bonanno, & Mancini, 2009). Participants completed the task with a
researcher, who helped them list and clarify their traits (e.g., ‘‘kind’’
or ‘‘thoughtful’’). Once the list was finalized, the researcher then
asked the participant to indicate the extent that each trait had
changed since the loss. Resilient individuals reported a relatively low
level of identity change (i.e., high identity continuity) at both 4 and
18 months postloss and did not differ from the degree of identity
change reported by nonbereaved participants. By contrast, symp-
tomatic bereaved persons experienced significantly greater identity
change. Interestingly, the number of traits a person reported, which
we defined as identity complexity, was not associated with resilience.
1818 Mancini & Bonanno

However, among more symptomatic bereaved individuals, identity

complexity emerged as a meaningful predictor of recovery over time.
More specifically, highly depressed bereaved persons who had more
complex identities were more likely to recover, whereas highly de-
pressed bereaved people with less complex identities tended to have
chronically elevated symptoms. Together, these results suggest that
identity continuity is primarily a feature of a resilient outcome,
whereas identity complexity serves as more of a coping factor that is
operative at high distress levels.

Positive Emotions

There is growing recognition that positive emotional experiences

provide an array of adaptive benefits, both for general functioning
and in response to stressful events (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005;
Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004; but see also Bonanno, Colak, et al.,
2007). Countering a once commonly held view that positive emo-
tions in response to loss are a form of unhealthy denial (Bowlby,
1980), evidence now supports the idea that a critical pathway to re-
silience to loss is through the expression of positive emotions and
even laughter (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Keltner & Bonanno,
1997). For example, bereaved individuals who exhibited genuine
laughs and smiles when speaking about a recent loss had better ad-
justment over several years of bereavement (Bonanno & Keltner,
1997) and also evoked more favorable responses in observers
(Keltner & Bonanno, 1997). Moreover, resilient bereaved people
also reported the fewest regrets about their behavior with the spouse
or about things they may have done or failed to do when he or she
was still alive. Finally, resilient individuals were less likely to search
to make sense of or find meaning in the spouse’s death, suggesting
that they are less likely to engage in rumination, which has negative
consequences for adjustment to loss (Nolen-Hoeksema, McBride, &
Larson, 1997).
How do positive emotions facilitate coping with loss? It appears
that positive emotional experience can play a role in quieting or un-
doing negative emotions and thereby reduce levels of distress fol-
lowing loss (Keltner & Bonanno, 1997; Tugade & Fredrickson,
2004). Furthermore, positive emotions can facilitate coping with
loss by increasing the availability of social supports (Bonanno &
Keltner, 1997). Positive emotional expression after a loss likely
Predictors and Parameters of Loss 1819

indicates to close others a willingness to maintain prosocial contact

(Malatesta, 1990). Indeed, an earlier study found that positive emo-
tional expression was most prevalent among bereaved individuals
with higher scores on the socially oriented personality characteristics
of extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (Keltner,
1996). Continued contact with important others in the bereaved
person’s social environment can have a variety of salutary conse-
quences (Lepore et al., 1996), especially when one considers that so-
cial isolation and loneliness are basic components of more
complicated grief reactions (Horowitz et al., 1997).

Comfort From Positive Memories

One final resilience factor is comfort from positive memories of the

deceased. Bonanno, Wortman, et al. (2002) found that resilient peo-
ple are particularly likely to experience positive emotions in tandem
with memories of the deceased. Specifically, resilient people were
better able than other bereaved participants to gain comfort from
talking about or thinking about the spouse. For example, they were
more likely than other bereaved people to report that thinking about
and talking about their deceased spouse made them feel happy or at
peace (Bonanno, Wortman, et al., 2004). Moreover, this capacity
remains stable over time for the resilient bereaved, whereas the re-
covered or chronic grief trajectories show greater variability. For
example, persons who demonstrate the recovery pattern see a decline
over time in their capacity for comfort from positive memories of the
deceased. These findings suggest that comfort from positive memo-
ries serves to protect the bereaved person from undue distress related
to the loss and to provide a renewable source of positive affect. Seen
from an attachment theory perspective, this furthermore suggests
that the internalized representation of the deceased continues to
serve adaptive ends.

Hypothesized Model of Individual Differences

in Resilience
As we noted at the onset of this article and elsewhere (Bonanno,
2004, 2005; Bonanno & Mancini, 2008; Mancini & Bonanno, 2006),
the factors associated with resilience are heterogeneous. Indeed, it is
increasingly evident that resilience can be achieved through a variety
1820 Mancini & Bonanno

of means. There are multiple risk and protective factors across in-
dividuals, and it is the totality of these factors, rather than any one
primary factor, that determines the likelihood of a resilient outcome
(e.g., Bonanno, Galea, Bucciarelli, & Vlahov, 2007). Nonetheless,
our understanding of resilient processes can be advanced by inte-
grating and organizing these factors along the lines of common or
shared mechanisms. These shared mechanisms are graphically illus-
trated in a hypothesized model of resilience (Figure 2). As can be
seen from this diagram, we propose that individual differences have
both direct and indirect effects on coping with loss. The indirect
effects are channeled through at least two mechanisms of resilience—
appraisal processes and social support—each of which can play a
salutary role in promoting more effective coping. Next we briefly
review evidence to support the critical role of appraisal processes and
the use of social resources as shared pathways or mechanisms for
resilience.

Appraisal Processes

The initial appraisal of the experience of loss plays a critical role in

how one copes with it. For example, bereaved persons who view the
loss in overwhelming and threatening terms are more likely to em-
ploy short-term emotion-focused coping strategies designed to man-
age distress (Olff et al., 2005). An excessive focus on the regulation of
emotions can divert attention from more long-term coping strategies
that are problem-focused and ultimately more effective in managing
the complex stresses associated with loss. As indicated in Figure 2, a
number of individual difference variables have been shown to influ-
ence how we appraise loss and other stressful events. For example,
self-enhancers appear to benefit from a dispositional tendency to
think favorably of the self and to overestimate their ability to control
events (Taylor & Armor, 1996). Even if these self-perceptions are
inaccurate and even illusory (Goorin & Bonanno, 2008), self-en-
hancing tendencies can mitigate the degree to which loss and other
stressors are perceived as threatening. In a striking demonstration of
this, self-enhancers in a laboratory stress paradigm had lower car-
diovascular responses to stress and a more rapid cardiovascular re-
covery, suggestive of adaptive coping (Taylor, Lerner, Sherman,
Sage, & McDowell, 2003).
Predictors and Parameters of Loss 1821

Figure 2
Hypothesized model of resilience.

In a somewhat different fashion, persons who employ repressive

coping strategies are vulnerable to increases in psychophysiological
arousal in the presence of stressors but also succeed in automatically
screening out such stimuli. Although this coping strategy may po-
tentially entail health costs, repressive coping is an effective means of
blunting the threatening nature of loss and other stressors. Indeed,
repressors appraise laboratory stressors as less threatening than
nonrepressors (Tomaka, Blascovich, & Kelsey, 1992). Another fac-
tor that may promote a more benign appraisal of loss is favorable a
priori beliefs. For example, persons with stronger justice beliefs
showed reduced physiological responsiveness in response to threat-
ening stimuli and more adaptive coping responses (Tomaka &
Blascovich, 1994; Tomaka et al., 1993). A dismissing–avoidant
attachment pattern also may contribute to a more benign appraisal
of loss, because such persons tend to value independence and
self-reliance and thus would experience loss as less overwhelming.
By easing the negative affect associated with the loss, comfort from
positive memories would likely also tend to diminish negative ap-
praisals of the loss and of its potential impact. Taken together, these
heterogeneous factors appear to share at least one common pathway
through which they promote resilience—by mitigating the poten-
tially threatening and overwhelming nature of loss, they promote
homeostasis and regulate emotional responses to the loss. They are
furthermore likely to increase the availability of positive emotions
1822 Mancini & Bonanno

(Bonanno, Goorin, & Coifman, 2008), which can serve a variety of

adaptive functions under stressful conditions (Fredrickson, 1998).
Indeed, given that threatening appraisals of stressful events can lead
to a host of untoward consequences, including higher reactive levels
of cortisol (Buchanan, al’Absi, & Lovallo, 1999), more negative
affect (Tomaka et al., 1993; Tomaka, Blascovich, Kibler, & Ernst,
1997), and increased sympathetic arousal (Olff et al., 2005), a critical
component of resilience to loss is initial and ongoing appraisals of
the event, which set in train a variety of affective and neurobiological
consequences that critically shape coping efforts.

Use and Availability of Social Resources

Another common pathway to resilience is the availability and effec-

tive use of social resources. For example, although self-enhancers
show some social liabilities (Paulhus, 1998), they also have clear
strengths in their social functioning. Self-enhancers are more likely
to perceive that social resources are supportive (Bonanno, Rennicke,
et al., 2005) and are more likely to have larger social networks
(Goorin & Bonanno, 2008). As noted above, positive emotional ex-
pression is also likely to enhance social resources by indicating a
willingness to engage in social interaction (Malatesta, 1990). These
social resources would appear to confer a distinct adaptive advan-
tage in coping with loss, increasing the opportunity for beneficial
self-disclosure, promoting the regulation of emotion, diminishing
isolation, and furthering the development of new social networks.
Moreover, as shown in Figure 2, we would argue that supportive
social resources and positive appraisals would likely have synergis-
tically ameliorative effects. That is, consistent with the perspective
that social interactions can facilitate cognitive integration of stressful
experiences (e.g., Lepore et al., 2000), social support would be likely
to facilitate less threatening appraisals of the loss. Indeed, social
support has been widely shown to buffer the negative effects of
stressful events (Cohen & Wills, 1985). By the same token, less
threatening appraisals of loss would tend to enhance positive affect
and thus broaden the scope of behavior and thought, which in turn
would build social resources (Fredrickson, 1998). Broadly consistent
with this model, meta-analyses of persons exposed to potentially
traumatic events have shown that lack of social support is among the
Predictors and Parameters of Loss 1823

strongest predictors of PTSD (Brewin, Andrews, & Valentine, 2000;

Ozer, Best, Lipsey, & Weiss, 2003).

Conclusion and Implications

This article has focused on individual difference factors that con-
tribute to resilience to loss. These factors comprise broadly adaptive
characteristics, such as positive emotions, favorable beliefs, and
identity continuity, and factors that may be more of a mixed bless-
ing, such as repressive coping, dismissive attachment, and the
habitual use of self-enhancing attributions and biases. Given
the heterogeneity of these resilience factors, it is clear that there
are many ways to arrive at a resilient response to loss. Indeed, we
argue that resilience is a variegated phenomenon that defies simple
characterization. Nevertheless, we suggest that these factors, like
tributaries to a river, appear to converge on common mechanisms.
Two such mechanisms are appraisal processes and the use of social
resources. Of course, these resilience factors and mechanisms are
neither exhaustive nor definitive. Indeed, future research should seek
to identify additional resilience factors, consider the moderating
effects of environmental influences, and further refine our under-
standing of underlying mechanisms of resilience. An additional and
important area of study would be to assess the covariation of resil-
ience factors and to identify clusters of individual differences asso-
ciated with resilience. For example, self-enhancing biases are
generally associated with greater levels of positive affect (Robins &
Beer, 2001), suggesting an underlying substrate that may impinge on
the capacity for resilience. In considering these questions, it is critical
for researchers to employ prospective designs, which are the only
methodological solution for differentiating grief trajectories and for
unconfounding potential resilience factors and the individual’s re-
sponse to the stressful experience of loss.
What are the implications of the heterogeneous nature of resil-
ience for clinical interventions? One obvious implication is that a
variety of coping strategies are effective, and thus a one-size-fits-all
approach for grievers, once commonly endorsed by grief theorists, is
no longer tenable. Indeed, the study of resilience suggests a number
of potential avenues for clinical intervention (for a longer treatment
of this issue, see Mancini & Bonanno, 2006). For example, flexibility
in emotion regulation, measured as the ability to either enhance or
1824 Mancini & Bonanno

suppress the expression of emotion in accord with situational

demands, predicted better adjustment in the aftermath of the 9/11
terrorist attacks (Bonanno, Papa, Lalande, Westphal, & Coifman,
2004). We are currently exploring how such skills might inform be-
reavement outcome. Although no formal treatment approach exists
to teach these kinds of skills directly, we suspect that coping flexi-
bility might be learned or with practice improved among individuals
who lack such abilities. In addition, the critical role of appraisal and
social resources suggests intervention strategies. For example, be-
reaved persons who rely on suppression to regulate feelings—the
inhibition of behaviors associated with a specific emotional experi-
ence—may impair their ability to absorb information and to func-
tion interpersonally (Gross & John, 2003), potentially depriving the
person of vital resources. By contrast, cognitive reappraisal, which
involves construing a potentially stressful event in benign or growth-
oriented terms in order to diminish its emotional impact, may be an
important skill in adaptive coping with loss, because it would further
emotional regulation while permitting the person to take full advan-
tage of social relationships. Although such techniques are standard
components of clinical intervention, given the findings on individual
differences in resilience, it seems worth emphasizing their potentially
important role in interventions with bereaved persons.
One additional question is the role of contextual factors, such as
the nature of the loss, caregiving strain, or material resources, and
their potential interaction with individual differences. Although it
might appear intuitive that sudden losses would be less likely to be
associated with resilience, data have largely been equivocal on this
question. However, one well-designed study, using a representative
sample, appropriate control variables, and prospective data, found
that the sudden loss of a loved one is not, by itself, associated with
worse adjustment (Carr, House, Wortman, Neese, & Kessler, 2001).
On the other hand, there is evidence that losses from violent causes
(suicide, homicide, or violent accident), which are almost always
sudden, are associated with more symptomatology and lower levels
of resilience (Kaltman & Bonanno, 2003). Interestingly, it appears
that self-enhancement offers additional protective effects for such
losses. For example, in one study, self-enhancement interacted with
traumatic loss (suicide, homicide, or violent accident) to predict
lower levels of PTSD primarily among those likely to experience
traumatic grief (Bonanno, Field, et al., 2002). Thus, self-enhance-
Predictors and Parameters of Loss 1825

ment was not only beneficial for coping with ordinary bereavement
but also exerted an additional buffering effect on the negative con-
sequences of traumatic deaths. Caregiving strain, by contrast, ap-
pears not to be related to resilience per se, but it does predict an
unusual trajectory of improved functioning following loss (Bonanno,
Wortman, et al. 2002). Additional evidence for the crucial role of
contextual factors was found in a recent analysis of a large panel
data set. Using a latent class framework, we not only validated the
resilient trajectory empirically but we also found that one of the
factors associated with resilience was less reduction in income fol-
lowing loss (Mancini & Bonanno, 2008b).
Another question raised by the present review is whether the pro-
cesses that lead to resilience to loss, a stressor most people are ex-
posed to, are qualitatively different from resilience to other more
extreme and violent stressors, such as combat or physical or sexual
assault. Extant research suggests that a number of the factors asso-
ciated with resilience to loss also serve a protective function against
these other more extreme stressors. These include self-enhancing bi-
ases (Bonanno, Field, et al., 2002; Bonanno, Rennicke, et al., 2005),
repressive coping (Bonanno, Noll, Putnam, O’Neill, & Trickett,
2003), and positive emotions (Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh, & Lar-
kin, 2003). Nevertheless, it would appear likely that resilience to loss
and to more extreme and violent stressors would have both common
and unique predictors. However, research has yet to elucidate the
distinctions between these types of resilience.
Although this paper is concerned with individual differences in
resilience, a final important question is the role of ethnic and cultural
variations in resilience during bereavement. Western, independence-
oriented countries tend to focus more heavily than collectivist coun-
tries on the personal experience of grief. What are the implications of
such cultural beliefs about the self for the study of resilience? Un-
fortunately, research on the extent to which bereavement reactions
might vary across cultures is still nascent. Preliminary evidence sug-
gests that bereaved people in China recover more quickly from loss
than do bereaved Americans (Bonanno, Papa, Lalande, Nanping, &
Noll, 2005). Moreover, for the Chinese, coping is enhanced by a
continuing psychological bond with the deceased, whereas the evi-
dence for the salutary role of a continuing bond among Americans is
less conclusive (Lalande & Bonanno, 2006). These findings suggest
that cultural beliefs may even influence the degree to which resilience
1826 Mancini & Bonanno

factors are operative. Moreover, these data raise the question of

whether different cultures may learn from each other about effective
and not so effective coping strategies or whether the ameliorative
effects of such practices are inherently culture bound.

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