Recalling your capabilities boost resilience

Recalling your capabilities boost resilience

Research from the University of Zurich confirms that reflecting on how you have overcome past personal challenges can help you process negative experiences. Actively reminding yourself of your self-efficacy could also prove useful in the coronavirus era. 

Dealing with the uncertainty and loss of control during the coronavirus pandemic is particularly challenging for many people. While a large segment of the population turns out to be resilient in times of stress and potentially traumatic events, others are less robust and develop stress-related illnesses. Individuals showcase different coping mechanisms to different events. When some people experience certain events as draining, others find it to be a source of motivation and creativity. 

A team from the Department of Psychology and the University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich teamed up with researchers from New York to investigate how people can strengthen their psychological resilience when facing adversity. Differing degrees of resilience demonstrate that people recover from stressful events at different rates, with psychosocial factors such as positivity, optimism, the ability to self-regulate, social skills, problem-solving skills, and social support playing a role. 

Importance of believing in your own power 

“Self-efficacy is a key element of resilience,’ explains Birgit Kleim, professor of psychology at UZH and director of the study. “By self-efficacy, I mean the belief that we have the ability to influence things to at least a small degree, even if some things are unchangeable.’A self-efficacious person is convinced that they can draw on their own powers to overcome difficult and challenging situations. It doesn’t matter whether this is actually the case, as Kleim explains: “Without believing in your own capabilities, you wouldn’t take on any challenges in the first place.’ Self-efficacious people have stronger problem-solving abilities, a higher level of persistence and this also corresponds to increased brain activation in regions linked to emotional regulation. 

For the resilience study, a team of researchers examined 75 people who were distressed by a negative emotional memory. Before recalling and reassessing this distressing memory, one group of subjects was instructed to vividly recall a positive event such as a beautiful

experience in nature or a joyful encounter with others. The others were instructed to think of a time in which they felt they were particularly self-efficacious: situations such as having a successful conversation, passing a difficult exam, or giving a presentation. In many cases, doing this exercise just once was already enough to achieve a positive effect. 

Recalling autobiographical self-efficacy yields dramatic effects 

“Recalling a specific instance of one’s own self-efficacy proved to have a far greater impact than recalling a positive event,” says Kleim. Participants who were asked to recall their own self-efficacious behavior could more easily reassess a negative situation and view it in a different and positive light. The negative experiences were perceived as less distressing as compared to subjects who were instructed to reflect on a positive memory unconnected to self-efficacy. 

“Our study shows that recalling self-efficacious autobiographical events can be used as a tool both in everyday life and in clinical settings to boost personal resilience,’ explains the research team. 

Using memories strategically to overcome past challenges can be a way of coping with crisis situations. This also applies to the coronavirus crisis, where these memories can be used to shield against the negative impacts of the pandemic. These findings suggest that recalling self-efficacy episodes may promote adaptive appraisals of negative memories, which in turn may contribute to recovery from stressful events and, with further research, may prove to be a useful adjunctive strategy for treatments such as CBT.


                                                                 References 

1. Christina Paersch, Ava Schulz, Frank H. Wilhelm, Adam D. Brown, Birgit Kleim. Recalling autobiographical self-efficacy episodes boosts reappraisal-effects on negative emotional memories.. Emotion, 2021; DOI: 10.1037/emo0000949