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It Is Not What Happens to You, But How You Think about It

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View the page of Karisha George

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Karisha George discusses a model for exploring why individuals fail to adapt to adversity.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 30, 2024

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This video outlines a discussion on the concept of resilience, focusing on how adversity can lead to personal growth and higher functioning for some individuals. The speaker is particularly interested in the cognitive processes that contribute to this resilience and discusses various factors such as social support, self-esteem, optimism, and how they relate to cognitive patterns.

Key points include:

1. **Understanding Resilience**: Resilience is defined as the ability to positively adapt following adversity, with an emphasis on cognitive processes being fundamental to this adaptability.

2. **Cognitive Processes**: The speaker describes automatic and deliberate thinking patterns. Automatic patterns are linked to emotional responses, while deliberate patterns involve conscious thought processes like rumination, positive thinking, and meaning-making.

3. **Research Focus**: The research is structured around small studies that explore specific cognitive processes and their impact on resilience, particularly among university students facing various challenges.

4. **Meaning-Making**: A significant part of resilience is the ability to find meaning in adverse experiences. This video process is characterized by comprehensibility (how events fit into one’s understanding) and significance (the perceived benefits of those events).

5. **Interventions**: The speaker emphasizes the need for interventions that support students in developing positive thinking and meaning-making skills, as negative thinking has been shown to hinder their adaptability and resilience.

6. **Implications for Practice**: The findings suggest that resilience can be developed by enhancing cognitive processes related to positive thinking and constructing meaningful narratives from experiences. It's essential to support individuals in processing both negative and positive aspects of their experiences for long-term resilience.

Overall, the text advocates for a nuanced understanding of resilience that incorporates cognitive strategies and meaning-making as critical components in overcoming adversity.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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Essentially I was really curious about understanding under

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what conditions adversity becomes a gift.

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So the research is showing us that following adversity,

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they're groups of individuals who experience higher levels

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of functioning that levels that they would not have,

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they would not have achieved

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otherwise if they did not experience a adverse

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at that adverse event.

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So I wanted to better understand what was causing this.

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And within the literature just to increase,

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put in some terminology from the onset.

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This is called resilience.

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And resilience relates to the adapt, the ability

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to positively adapt following adversity with resilience,

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individuals more likely to develop higher levels

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of functioning following an adverse experience.

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And I was really curious to understand what was the essence

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of this resilient profile?

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What led these persons to adapt while others did not.

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But in research was flooded with a lot

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of different factors about what led

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to this higher levels of resilience.

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So these included for instance, social support, self-esteem,

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hope, self-efficacy, optimism,

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and that's just a few of them.

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And I really wanted to simplify this.

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So provide that core element that can be the main area

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of focus when we are trying to develop higher levels

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of resilience and cognition emerged at this prime element.

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So I'm gonna use various terms throughout this interview.

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I'm gonna sometimes say cognition,

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sometimes say cognitive processes,

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sometimes say thinking patterns.

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But they all refer to how we think about

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and mentally engage with our adverse experiences.

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So let's take a look for instance, just a little bit

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of an example to get you a bit

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of understanding about why cognition is that prime element.

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Let's take a look at social support.

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Research suggests that the impact

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of social support comes from the levels

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of shared social identities that we have

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with those, with those groups.

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And social identity means the extent

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to which we feel we belong to those different social groups.

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So this felt understanding, so people

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who get our experiences or perspectives or aspirations

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and when we think about felt understanding,

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we should automatically be thinking about the fact

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that it's about social circles that matter to us

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and that implicates an evaluation

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and so implicates our cognition.

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And so it's this realization that cognitive processes seems

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to be the key element that led to my desire to understand

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how, which cognitive processes were most important in

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generating higher levels of functioning following adversity.

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It was important for me to specialize a specific population

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because the research suggests

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that different thinking patterns,

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different cognitive processes,

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important across different adverse experiences,

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but also across things like the lifespan.

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So what's important for the older generation,

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which is more about like cognitive processes focused on

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acceptance, is different for the younger generation

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who are focused on cognitive processes about

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what impact they can have on the,

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on the general larger world.

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So studies for instance

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as well exploring different adverse experiences such

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as victimization, implicates, self-efficacy while adjusting

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to adverse childhood experiences implicates mindfulness

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and hope and university itself is a challenging experience

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for numerous reasons.

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So we see students handling a range of new situations such

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as newly found freedom, financial independence,

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academic pressure, loneliness, and psychological insecurity.

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And many students are struggling with this.

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So it is an adverse experience

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where we are seeing there's something that needs to happen

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for us to support our students in developing higher levels

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of ex higher levels of resilience.

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And we're seeing this for instance, in terms

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of the increased levels of clinical

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and depression, clinical depression

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and anxiety that students are are reporting,

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but also the increased incidences of self harm

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that we're seeing across all higher education institutions.

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And I was just keen to understand

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what cognitive processes were key

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to students successfully adapting to university life

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so we can develop tools to support them

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during their time with us.

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So this is gonna be slightly lengthy

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and I hope I don't lose you along the way.

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So the research involved a series of small studies,

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and I'm gonna go through it bit by bit in in the hopes

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that I'm able to explain this in a way that you understand.

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Each of these studies were focused on exploring,

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a specific cognitive process.

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And some of them compared two different cognitive processes.

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'cause what we wanted to do was to identify at least two

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to three core cognitive processes.

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And then the final study was about

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how these processes interact with each other

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to generate higher levels of resilience

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among university students.

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And so we focused in this interview, I'll talk about three

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of those cognitive processes.

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So automatic thinking patterns

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or deliberate thinking patterns

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and how we find meaning in our experiences.

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So let's start off with the automatic thinking patterns.

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We feel these as emotions.

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So you automatically feel angry, you feel anxious,

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you feel sad, but every single emotion has an underlying

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complex automatic thinking process.

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So for instance, one of the core models

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to explain this is the cognitive appraisal

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or process where for instance,

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we feel anger when we have evaluated

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that our desires have not been met in a situation

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and this has happened because of someone

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that we can readily identify.

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But is it if it's when the same situation

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and we can't identify the cause

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of those desires not being met,

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we are more likely to feel sad.

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So what we see in underlying those automatic cognitive

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processes are those automatic emotional processes are

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automatic cognitive processes.

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And because they're so automatic,

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they're difficult to evaluate.

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And when in this first study where we evaluated the impact

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of those on students, students capacity

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to develop high levels of resilience, we then had

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to pilot a series of videos.

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So these emotionally triggering videos

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and we wanted to ensure that we had emotional videos

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that triggered a variety of emotions including happiness,

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anxiety, sadness, anger, et cetera.

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To kind of further understand

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how these automatic processes were influencing students,

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higher students' capacity

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to develop higher levels of resilience.

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We focused on students that were least likely to be able

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to develop those levels of resilience.

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So students high in what is called negative trait emotion.

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So people with students with high on negative trait emotion

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are more likely to feel intense emotions, more likely

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to engage in negative kind of thinking patterns, et cetera.

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And so we were more able to see

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what was happening within those groups of students.

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The second one is deliberate thinking patterns.

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And as the name suggests, it's

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what we have more control over.

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So for instance, one of the most important

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ones is rumination.

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It's it's ref, it refers to the tendency for us

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to think repetitively about the causes consequences

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and symptoms of our negative emotions.

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We're experiencing negative emotion and then we think over

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and over and over about it.

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And that has been linked consistently to higher levels

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of lower levels of resilience

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because they, that leads to higher levels of depression.

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So the first study compared the impact

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of those two automatic thinking processes with those videos

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and deliberate thinking patterns,

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namely rumination using the emotional control questionnaire.

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They also then completed a resilience measure so

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that we can have those kind

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of comparisons coming through for us.

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And we focus again on students

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that were high in negative treaty motion.

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We use a mediation analysis here

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and a mediation kind of tries to explain the relationship

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between two variables

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and how much of that relationship is explained

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by a third variable.

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So we looked at students high in treaty motion

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and the levels of resilience

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and the extent to which the automatic versus thinking

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process, automatic versus deliberate thinking processes

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explain that relationship.

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And we found a lack of explanatory power

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for the automatic cognitive processes, which is good.

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It suggests us that if we're highly emotional people,

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we can still develop high levels of resilience.

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And the fact that those processes are automatic means

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that they'll be very hard to change.

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So that was really good for us to see

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because deliberate thinking patterns will be more likely

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to be able to change The next step step was

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that deliberate thinking patterns are very complex.

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So it's a very kind of multiple different,

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measures exist in literature

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and we just need to identify which aspects

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of deliberate thinking patterns will most important

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to students levels of resilience.

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So we come, we had four. We looked at positive thinking.

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So optimistic thinking, we looked at worry, we included

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that rumination measure again.

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And we looked at something that was kind

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of now emerging in literature called savoring.

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So the capacity to recall, anticipate

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and revel in positive emotions.

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And so we wanted to see of, of those dimensions,

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which one was the most important

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for university student resilience.

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But I also wanted to include something qualitative

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'cause I'm a mixed methods researcher.

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And so I looked at a way in which we can get students

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to just tell us about what they're thinking.

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So let us see what you're thinking patterns are.

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So we had them, we presented them with a, a passage

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that was along the lines of rise freely for

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around 20 minutes about what you're thinking

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and you're feeling in this moment.

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Just write your thoughts on paper.

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And that actually kind of streams

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of consciousness allowed us to see

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how their thinking patterns were working naturally.

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And we, we ex we evaluated

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that using linguistic analysis in order

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to understand the degree

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to which our students were engaged in what we refer to

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as complex thinking.

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So complex thinking is the extent to which they're able

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to differentiate different aspects of who they are

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and different aspects of their life,

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but not just differentiate them and leave them as is,

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but understanding relationships between them.

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So differentiate them

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and integrate them together to have an understanding

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of the whole of who they are, the whole

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of their university lives for instance.

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And so that's what kind of quantitative co

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or quantitative mixed qualitative content analysis.

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And we used that alongside the optimistic thinking et cetera

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measures in order to fully explore the deliberate thinking

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patterns to evaluate what was present in

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that qualitative type of analysis.

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We looked at, we used the look, so the linguistic inquiry

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and word count, analysis.

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And we used around four kind of scales.

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So we looked at the frequency with which they used words

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that showed insight to the extent

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to which they're actually engaging in

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that complex evaluation.

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And that's words such as realized.

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And see we looked at words

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that implicated cognitive processes such as cause

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and know we looked at words that were differentiating so,

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but or without, and words that were kind of considering

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how things were related to each other,

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what we called tentatives.

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So words such as maybe and perhaps

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and the frequency of those words were seen as the free

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to tell us the extent to which those students were engaged

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in complex thinking.

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We had a large sample

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and what we did was the same mediation analysis.

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So looking at the relationship between trait emotion

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and really resilience and comparing those

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kind of five different things.

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So the optimistic, savoring, rumination

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and worry as well as the complex thinking.

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And what we found was there were actual differences

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emerging, but mainly the positive think increased positive

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thinking, decreased negative thinking were the most

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important aspects of deliberate thinking that was important

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for students levels of resilience.

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What we found was that overall the complex thinking was not

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important, but when we looked at the independence

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of the different scales, so the insight differently,

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the causal, differently, et cetera, independently, we found

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that the insight significantly mediated.

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But the insight in itself kind of shows us a bit about

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that analytical self focus that does not progress anywhere.

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And so it actually is tapping into rumination for us.

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So again, we were seeing that it was

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that rumination thinking was most important.

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So the final thing, so I'm coming to the end now,

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hope you're still with me.

11:10.465 --> 11:12.445
The final thing is about meaning making.

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So meaning making within any literature is one

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of the core aspects of determining resilience.

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It comes all consistently across a variety of populations

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and it seems to be the main determining thinking person

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that tells us whether we're able to develop high levels

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of resilience or not.

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And it has two types, so meaning as comprehensibility

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and meaning as significance.

11:34.265 --> 11:36.605
So think of your brain like a big jigsaw puzzle

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and meaning as comprehensibility means

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that you have an event and that event is a new piece

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of your jigsaw puzzle

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and you're trying to fit that event into your brain,

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which is your larger jigsaw puzzle.

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So you're trying to include it or,

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or kind of integrate it in a way that kind of allows you

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to keep having your, your your view of the world.

11:54.505 --> 11:56.005
So it's a difficult experience

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and it takes time for people to do,

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but it's seen as of of the two, it's seen as the one

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that's most important for that long-term resilience.

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The other one is meaning as significant.

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So you don't, you don't really care about

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how it fits into the brain.

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You just wanna see the positives.

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You wanna see what is the benefit of that experience

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and you are only gonna hold onto those benefits.

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So that's what meaning our significance is.

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And essentially we wanted to compare the impact

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of those two on again explaining

12:19.645 --> 12:20.725
students levels of resilience.

12:21.305 --> 12:23.765
So we used the same kind of linguistic analysis.

12:23.785 --> 12:26.725
We had them write for us about their university lives.

12:26.835 --> 12:29.405
Tell us about how it is like for you coming to university,

12:29.865 --> 12:32.325
how does it relate to who you are, who you have been,

12:32.345 --> 12:34.485
who you want to be, think about your past

12:34.545 --> 12:35.965
and how that relates to university.

12:35.965 --> 12:37.605
Think about what relates the impact relates

12:37.605 --> 12:39.965
to university is having on who you wanna be in the future.

12:40.585 --> 12:42.245
We had them write again for 20 minutes

12:42.585 --> 12:44.085
and in addition to the look this time,

12:44.085 --> 12:46.805
we actually integrated a couple master students

12:46.905 --> 12:49.645
and had them content analyze this for us as well.

12:50.185 --> 12:52.085
Um, so they looked at the extent

12:52.085 --> 12:53.525
to which there was two aspects.

12:53.525 --> 12:55.925
So the extent to which the press these students were still

12:55.955 --> 12:57.605
engaged in finding meaning,

12:58.025 --> 12:59.765
so they have not actually completed it.

13:00.025 --> 13:01.405
And the extent to which students had

13:01.405 --> 13:02.605
already found those meanings.

13:02.605 --> 13:05.045
So there were four aspects engaging in meaning

13:05.105 --> 13:06.765
as comprehensibility or significance

13:06.945 --> 13:08.125
and having found meaning

13:08.145 --> 13:09.725
as comprehensibility of significance.

13:10.265 --> 13:12.285
We of course did the inter to reliability

13:12.345 --> 13:13.445
and we found that it was high.

13:13.665 --> 13:17.925
So 0.7 for ongoing meaning and 0.73 for completing meaning.

13:18.625 --> 13:20.645
And what we found in this was, was one

13:20.645 --> 13:22.565
of the most important findings I think so far.

13:23.265 --> 13:27.845
We found that having an unresolved meaning was the most

13:27.845 --> 13:30.365
important thing in leading to lower levels of resilience.

13:30.745 --> 13:32.485
And that aligned with the literature

13:32.485 --> 13:34.045
because meaning making is a long

13:34.545 --> 13:36.525
and difficult process if you have a really

13:36.555 --> 13:37.685
adverse experience.

13:38.145 --> 13:39.285
And what we are finding is

13:39.285 --> 13:41.685
that if they get stuck in this meaning making process,

13:41.705 --> 13:43.925
if they ongoing, if they're, if they're not able

13:44.205 --> 13:46.485
to find meaning and they just keep searching and searching

13:46.485 --> 13:48.925
and searching, that negatively impacts

13:48.925 --> 13:49.965
their levels of resilience.

13:50.585 --> 13:52.965
And so we highlighted across these studies three,

13:53.185 --> 13:56.045
two important cognitive processes for that re

13:56.315 --> 13:57.925
that emerging resilient profile.

13:58.145 --> 14:01.445
The deliberate thinking patterns and having,

14:01.705 --> 14:04.485
and having kind of found that that meaning

14:04.625 --> 14:06.605
but the negative positive thinking

14:06.605 --> 14:09.685
and finding meaning, being positive but negative thinking

14:09.685 --> 14:11.125
and still not being able to find

14:11.125 --> 14:12.325
that meaning being negative.

14:12.665 --> 14:15.285
One of these things is possibly like they, they've come in

14:15.285 --> 14:17.205
and they're having a difficulty with their flatmates

14:17.225 --> 14:19.085
and even though it's like they're thinking about

14:19.185 --> 14:20.245
how they've come in

14:20.545 --> 14:22.925
and how they had that difficulty with that flatmates

14:22.945 --> 14:25.565
and it's not been resolved, they're still thinking about us.

14:25.565 --> 14:27.605
So they're still trying to process, maybe it's me,

14:27.605 --> 14:29.125
maybe it's this, maybe it's this.

14:29.125 --> 14:32.085
Whereas the others would say, this is how it relates to me,

14:32.105 --> 14:35.045
or this is the benefits I have found that kind of maybe And

14:35.045 --> 14:36.925
that 10 was nature of that kind

14:36.925 --> 14:39.365
of meaning making process suggest to us that

14:39.565 --> 14:42.125
that was ongoing versus having actually found it.

14:42.195 --> 14:45.245
Essentially. The main implications I want us to focus on

14:45.785 --> 14:48.805
is the fact that our final study, a study I have not found,

14:49.005 --> 14:52.365
I have not mentioned thus far compared how deliberate

14:52.425 --> 14:54.525
and meaning was, was related to each other.

14:55.065 --> 14:59.405
And it found that negative thinking reduced the level

14:59.425 --> 15:01.565
to which students were able to find meaning

15:01.585 --> 15:02.645
as comprehensibility.

15:02.825 --> 15:04.805
And that led to lower levels of resilience

15:05.225 --> 15:07.805
and positive thinking increased the frequency

15:07.805 --> 15:09.285
with which students were able to find meaning

15:09.305 --> 15:12.365
as significance and that led to higher levels of resilience.

15:12.825 --> 15:15.805
And so what we're finding is that that meaning making,

15:15.805 --> 15:18.085
which is so core, can be impacted

15:18.185 --> 15:19.925
by our deliberate thinking processes.

15:20.345 --> 15:22.885
And it's ultimately those deliberate thinking processes

15:22.885 --> 15:25.845
that we just have to work on within our students providing

15:25.845 --> 15:26.885
with resources to develop,

15:27.225 --> 15:29.605
but also that we have to work on with ourselves.

15:29.845 --> 15:31.205
'cause it's also, it's, it is something

15:31.205 --> 15:32.965
that has been highlighted in the literature as well.

15:33.425 --> 15:34.445
So that's the first thing

15:34.445 --> 15:35.965
that deliberate thinking processes

15:35.965 --> 15:37.125
seem to be most important.

15:37.635 --> 15:38.725
That it seems to be

15:38.725 --> 15:41.045
that why we can think about getting people

15:41.185 --> 15:42.645
and seeing the importance of triggering

15:42.645 --> 15:44.005
that meaning making process in students.

15:44.155 --> 15:46.485
What is most important is how these deliberate,

15:47.295 --> 15:49.765
these deliberate thinking patterns help them

15:49.785 --> 15:51.045
to complete that meaning.

15:51.145 --> 15:52.965
And so that is what we need to focus on.

15:53.465 --> 15:56.365
The second thing is that our traits kind of have a,

15:56.545 --> 15:58.165
to some degree a determination

15:58.545 --> 15:59.685
of the deliberate thinking

15:59.685 --> 16:01.045
patterns that we are more prone to have.

16:01.305 --> 16:03.485
So if we're more prone to respond to situations

16:03.795 --> 16:06.005
with negative thinking, that's okay,

16:06.025 --> 16:07.325
that's the trait that we have.

16:07.545 --> 16:09.885
But the traits are not the ultimate determining factor.

16:09.885 --> 16:11.285
There are a range of interventions

16:11.285 --> 16:12.605
that focus on getting people

16:12.605 --> 16:13.885
to change their levels of meaning.

16:14.385 --> 16:16.765
And an the third thing essentially is

16:16.765 --> 16:19.645
that our automatic emotions do not hinder our development

16:19.645 --> 16:21.045
of higher levels of resilience.

16:21.345 --> 16:23.445
So if we're emotional in our people

16:23.465 --> 16:25.645
or we have strong emotional reactions to things

16:25.915 --> 16:28.885
that is not the be allall end all of us being able to adapt

16:28.945 --> 16:30.245
and develop high levels

16:30.265 --> 16:32.125
of functioning following our experiences.

16:32.545 --> 16:36.485
So my main hope is that re readers will think about

16:36.665 --> 16:39.325
or start engaging with their deliberate thinking patterns in

16:39.325 --> 16:40.485
kind of in depth ways.

16:41.385 --> 16:44.325
We know that there's this focus within the general,

16:44.455 --> 16:46.765
world that you focus on optimistic thinking

16:46.765 --> 16:48.005
and try to be optimistic,

16:48.345 --> 16:50.925
but everything needs to be within a kind of moderation

16:50.925 --> 16:52.885
because there's a, there's a negative aspect

16:52.885 --> 16:54.885
to only focus on what's positive thinking.

16:55.105 --> 16:58.485
And it's called a Polly Pollyanna syndrome, where no matter

16:58.485 --> 17:00.205
what, you are not gonna focus on a negative,

17:00.205 --> 17:03.325
you're gonna focus on a positive, but meaning making comes

17:03.385 --> 17:05.285
and it's triggered by us actually engaging

17:05.285 --> 17:06.685
with those negative experiences.

17:07.025 --> 17:09.125
So we do have to engage with those experiences

17:09.265 --> 17:11.005
and we do have to kind of try

17:11.005 --> 17:12.565
to find meaning in those experiences.

17:13.025 --> 17:16.405
And it's through us kind of learning how to integrate

17:16.405 --> 17:18.925
that optimistic thinking into our meaning making

17:18.925 --> 17:21.765
that will help us develop those, those, high levels

17:21.765 --> 17:22.965
of resilience over time.

17:23.425 --> 17:25.365
So my main hope is that they understand firstly

17:25.365 --> 17:26.965
that emotions are not the full story.

17:27.235 --> 17:29.125
What determines our resilience is complex

17:29.185 --> 17:31.045
and the main underlying factors seems

17:31.045 --> 17:32.725
to be these deliberate thinking processes,

17:32.985 --> 17:34.965
but they cannot be understood on their own.

17:35.235 --> 17:37.125
They have to be understood within the

17:37.125 --> 17:38.445
context of meaning making.

17:38.905 --> 17:42.165
And so within this, within this overall picture, I want us

17:42.165 --> 17:44.805
to start, I want people to think about ways in which they

17:44.805 --> 17:47.405
can on a whole generally think more positively about

17:47.405 --> 17:48.925
themselves, about their experiences.

17:49.305 --> 17:51.885
And so start kind of developing higher levels

17:51.905 --> 17:54.245
of positive thinking within that engagement

17:54.245 --> 17:56.885
with their experiences and trying to think, trying

17:56.885 --> 17:59.685
to reduce our tendency to ruminate on those past experiences

17:59.705 --> 18:01.645
and failures, but in, in a way

18:01.645 --> 18:03.805
that does not prevent us from trying to fit those,

18:03.815 --> 18:06.045
those new experiences into our schemas

18:06.045 --> 18:08.525
and having a deeper understanding of what's happened to us.

00:00 - Essentially I was really curious about understanding under what conditions adversity becomes a gift. So the research is showing us that following adversity, they're groups of individuals who experience higher levels of functioning that levels that they would not have, they would not have achieved

00:15 - otherwise if they did not experience a adverse at that adverse event. So I wanted to better understand what was causing this. And within the literature just to increase, put in some terminology from the onset. This is called resilience. And resilience relates to the adapt, the ability to positively adapt following adversity with resilience, individuals more likely to develop higher levels of functioning following an adverse experience.

00:39 - And I was really curious to understand what was the essence of this resilient profile? What led these persons to adapt while others did not. But in research was flooded with a lot of different factors about what led to this higher levels of resilience. So these included for instance, social support, self-esteem, hope, self-efficacy, optimism, and that's just a few of them. And I really wanted to simplify this.

01:04 - So provide that core element that can be the main area of focus when we are trying to develop higher levels of resilience and cognition emerged at this prime element. So I'm gonna use various terms throughout this interview. I'm gonna sometimes say cognition, sometimes say cognitive processes, sometimes say thinking patterns. But they all refer to how we think about and mentally engage with our adverse experiences. So let's take a look for instance, just a little bit

01:29 - of an example to get you a bit of understanding about why cognition is that prime element. Let's take a look at social support. Research suggests that the impact of social support comes from the levels of shared social identities that we have with those, with those groups. And social identity means the extent to which we feel we belong to those different social groups. So this felt understanding, so people

01:51 - who get our experiences or perspectives or aspirations and when we think about felt understanding, we should automatically be thinking about the fact that it's about social circles that matter to us and that implicates an evaluation and so implicates our cognition. And so it's this realization that cognitive processes seems to be the key element that led to my desire to understand how, which cognitive processes were most important in generating higher levels of functioning following adversity.

02:20 - It was important for me to specialize a specific population because the research suggests that different thinking patterns, different cognitive processes, important across different adverse experiences, but also across things like the lifespan. So what's important for the older generation, which is more about like cognitive processes focused on acceptance, is different for the younger generation who are focused on cognitive processes about

02:43 - what impact they can have on the, on the general larger world. So studies for instance as well exploring different adverse experiences such as victimization, implicates, self-efficacy while adjusting to adverse childhood experiences implicates mindfulness and hope and university itself is a challenging experience for numerous reasons. So we see students handling a range of new situations such as newly found freedom, financial independence,

03:09 - academic pressure, loneliness, and psychological insecurity. And many students are struggling with this. So it is an adverse experience where we are seeing there's something that needs to happen for us to support our students in developing higher levels of ex higher levels of resilience. And we're seeing this for instance, in terms of the increased levels of clinical and depression, clinical depression and anxiety that students are are reporting,

03:30 - but also the increased incidences of self harm that we're seeing across all higher education institutions. And I was just keen to understand what cognitive processes were key to students successfully adapting to university life so we can develop tools to support them during their time with us. So this is gonna be slightly lengthy and I hope I don't lose you along the way. So the research involved a series of small studies,

03:53 - and I'm gonna go through it bit by bit in in the hopes that I'm able to explain this in a way that you understand. Each of these studies were focused on exploring, a specific cognitive process. And some of them compared two different cognitive processes. 'cause what we wanted to do was to identify at least two to three core cognitive processes. And then the final study was about how these processes interact with each other to generate higher levels of resilience

04:17 - among university students. And so we focused in this interview, I'll talk about three of those cognitive processes. So automatic thinking patterns or deliberate thinking patterns and how we find meaning in our experiences. So let's start off with the automatic thinking patterns. We feel these as emotions. So you automatically feel angry, you feel anxious, you feel sad, but every single emotion has an underlying

04:40 - complex automatic thinking process. So for instance, one of the core models to explain this is the cognitive appraisal or process where for instance, we feel anger when we have evaluated that our desires have not been met in a situation and this has happened because of someone that we can readily identify. But is it if it's when the same situation and we can't identify the cause

05:01 - of those desires not being met, we are more likely to feel sad. So what we see in underlying those automatic cognitive processes are those automatic emotional processes are automatic cognitive processes. And because they're so automatic, they're difficult to evaluate. And when in this first study where we evaluated the impact of those on students, students capacity to develop high levels of resilience, we then had

05:24 - to pilot a series of videos. So these emotionally triggering videos and we wanted to ensure that we had emotional videos that triggered a variety of emotions including happiness, anxiety, sadness, anger, et cetera. To kind of further understand how these automatic processes were influencing students, higher students' capacity to develop higher levels of resilience. We focused on students that were least likely to be able

05:48 - to develop those levels of resilience. So students high in what is called negative trait emotion. So people with students with high on negative trait emotion are more likely to feel intense emotions, more likely to engage in negative kind of thinking patterns, et cetera. And so we were more able to see what was happening within those groups of students. The second one is deliberate thinking patterns. And as the name suggests, it's what we have more control over.

06:11 - So for instance, one of the most important ones is rumination. It's it's ref, it refers to the tendency for us to think repetitively about the causes consequences and symptoms of our negative emotions. We're experiencing negative emotion and then we think over and over and over about it. And that has been linked consistently to higher levels of lower levels of resilience because they, that leads to higher levels of depression.

06:35 - So the first study compared the impact of those two automatic thinking processes with those videos and deliberate thinking patterns, namely rumination using the emotional control questionnaire. They also then completed a resilience measure so that we can have those kind of comparisons coming through for us. And we focus again on students that were high in negative treaty motion. We use a mediation analysis here

06:56 - and a mediation kind of tries to explain the relationship between two variables and how much of that relationship is explained by a third variable. So we looked at students high in treaty motion and the levels of resilience and the extent to which the automatic versus thinking process, automatic versus deliberate thinking processes explain that relationship. And we found a lack of explanatory power

07:17 - for the automatic cognitive processes, which is good. It suggests us that if we're highly emotional people, we can still develop high levels of resilience. And the fact that those processes are automatic means that they'll be very hard to change. So that was really good for us to see because deliberate thinking patterns will be more likely to be able to change The next step step was that deliberate thinking patterns are very complex. So it's a very kind of multiple different,

07:41 - measures exist in literature and we just need to identify which aspects of deliberate thinking patterns will most important to students levels of resilience. So we come, we had four. We looked at positive thinking. So optimistic thinking, we looked at worry, we included that rumination measure again. And we looked at something that was kind of now emerging in literature called savoring. So the capacity to recall, anticipate

08:04 - and revel in positive emotions. And so we wanted to see of, of those dimensions, which one was the most important for university student resilience. But I also wanted to include something qualitative 'cause I'm a mixed methods researcher. And so I looked at a way in which we can get students to just tell us about what they're thinking. So let us see what you're thinking patterns are. So we had them, we presented them with a, a passage

08:28 - that was along the lines of rise freely for around 20 minutes about what you're thinking and you're feeling in this moment. Just write your thoughts on paper. And that actually kind of streams of consciousness allowed us to see how their thinking patterns were working naturally. And we, we ex we evaluated that using linguistic analysis in order to understand the degree

08:47 - to which our students were engaged in what we refer to as complex thinking. So complex thinking is the extent to which they're able to differentiate different aspects of who they are and different aspects of their life, but not just differentiate them and leave them as is, but understanding relationships between them. So differentiate them and integrate them together to have an understanding of the whole of who they are, the whole

09:09 - of their university lives for instance. And so that's what kind of quantitative co or quantitative mixed qualitative content analysis. And we used that alongside the optimistic thinking et cetera measures in order to fully explore the deliberate thinking patterns to evaluate what was present in that qualitative type of analysis. We looked at, we used the look, so the linguistic inquiry and word count, analysis. And we used around four kind of scales.

09:37 - So we looked at the frequency with which they used words that showed insight to the extent to which they're actually engaging in that complex evaluation. And that's words such as realized. And see we looked at words that implicated cognitive processes such as cause and know we looked at words that were differentiating so, but or without, and words that were kind of considering how things were related to each other,

09:59 - what we called tentatives. So words such as maybe and perhaps and the frequency of those words were seen as the free to tell us the extent to which those students were engaged in complex thinking. We had a large sample and what we did was the same mediation analysis. So looking at the relationship between trait emotion and really resilience and comparing those kind of five different things.

10:18 - So the optimistic, savoring, rumination and worry as well as the complex thinking. And what we found was there were actual differences emerging, but mainly the positive think increased positive thinking, decreased negative thinking were the most important aspects of deliberate thinking that was important for students levels of resilience. What we found was that overall the complex thinking was not important, but when we looked at the independence of the different scales, so the insight differently,

10:46 - the causal, differently, et cetera, independently, we found that the insight significantly mediated. But the insight in itself kind of shows us a bit about that analytical self focus that does not progress anywhere. And so it actually is tapping into rumination for us. So again, we were seeing that it was that rumination thinking was most important. So the final thing, so I'm coming to the end now, hope you're still with me. The final thing is about meaning making.

11:12 - So meaning making within any literature is one of the core aspects of determining resilience. It comes all consistently across a variety of populations and it seems to be the main determining thinking person that tells us whether we're able to develop high levels of resilience or not. And it has two types, so meaning as comprehensibility and meaning as significance. So think of your brain like a big jigsaw puzzle and meaning as comprehensibility means

11:38 - that you have an event and that event is a new piece of your jigsaw puzzle and you're trying to fit that event into your brain, which is your larger jigsaw puzzle. So you're trying to include it or, or kind of integrate it in a way that kind of allows you to keep having your, your your view of the world. So it's a difficult experience and it takes time for people to do, but it's seen as of of the two, it's seen as the one

12:00 - that's most important for that long-term resilience. The other one is meaning as significant. So you don't, you don't really care about how it fits into the brain. You just wanna see the positives. You wanna see what is the benefit of that experience and you are only gonna hold onto those benefits. So that's what meaning our significance is. And essentially we wanted to compare the impact of those two on again explaining

12:19 - students levels of resilience. So we used the same kind of linguistic analysis. We had them write for us about their university lives. Tell us about how it is like for you coming to university, how does it relate to who you are, who you have been, who you want to be, think about your past and how that relates to university. Think about what relates the impact relates to university is having on who you wanna be in the future. We had them write again for 20 minutes

12:42 - and in addition to the look this time, we actually integrated a couple master students and had them content analyze this for us as well. so they looked at the extent to which there was two aspects. So the extent to which the press these students were still engaged in finding meaning, so they have not actually completed it. And the extent to which students had already found those meanings.

13:02 - So there were four aspects engaging in meaning as comprehensibility or significance and having found meaning as comprehensibility of significance. We of course did the inter to reliability and we found that it was high. So 0.7 for ongoing meaning and 0.73 for completing meaning. And what we found in this was, was one of the most important findings I think so far. We found that having an unresolved meaning was the most

13:27 - important thing in leading to lower levels of resilience. And that aligned with the literature because meaning making is a long and difficult process if you have a really adverse experience. And what we are finding is that if they get stuck in this meaning making process, if they ongoing, if they're, if they're not able to find meaning and they just keep searching and searching and searching, that negatively impacts

13:48 - their levels of resilience. And so we highlighted across these studies three, two important cognitive processes for that re that emerging resilient profile. The deliberate thinking patterns and having, and having kind of found that that meaning but the negative positive thinking and finding meaning, being positive but negative thinking and still not being able to find that meaning being negative.

14:12 - One of these things is possibly like they, they've come in and they're having a difficulty with their flatmates and even though it's like they're thinking about how they've come in and how they had that difficulty with that flatmates and it's not been resolved, they're still thinking about us. So they're still trying to process, maybe it's me, maybe it's this, maybe it's this. Whereas the others would say, this is how it relates to me, or this is the benefits I have found that kind of maybe And

14:35 - that 10 was nature of that kind of meaning making process suggest to us that that was ongoing versus having actually found it. Essentially. The main implications I want us to focus on is the fact that our final study, a study I have not found, I have not mentioned thus far compared how deliberate and meaning was, was related to each other. And it found that negative thinking reduced the level to which students were able to find meaning as comprehensibility.

15:02 - And that led to lower levels of resilience and positive thinking increased the frequency with which students were able to find meaning as significance and that led to higher levels of resilience. And so what we're finding is that that meaning making, which is so core, can be impacted by our deliberate thinking processes. And it's ultimately those deliberate thinking processes that we just have to work on within our students providing with resources to develop,

15:27 - but also that we have to work on with ourselves. 'cause it's also, it's, it is something that has been highlighted in the literature as well. So that's the first thing that deliberate thinking processes seem to be most important. That it seems to be that why we can think about getting people and seeing the importance of triggering that meaning making process in students.

15:44 - What is most important is how these deliberate, these deliberate thinking patterns help them to complete that meaning. And so that is what we need to focus on. The second thing is that our traits kind of have a, to some degree a determination of the deliberate thinking patterns that we are more prone to have. So if we're more prone to respond to situations with negative thinking, that's okay,

16:06 - that's the trait that we have. But the traits are not the ultimate determining factor. There are a range of interventions that focus on getting people to change their levels of meaning. And an the third thing essentially is that our automatic emotions do not hinder our development of higher levels of resilience. So if we're emotional in our people or we have strong emotional reactions to things

16:25 - that is not the be allall end all of us being able to adapt and develop high levels of functioning following our experiences. So my main hope is that re readers will think about or start engaging with their deliberate thinking patterns in kind of in depth ways. We know that there's this focus within the general, world that you focus on optimistic thinking and try to be optimistic, but everything needs to be within a kind of moderation

16:50 - because there's a, there's a negative aspect to only focus on what's positive thinking. And it's called a Polly Pollyanna syndrome, where no matter what, you are not gonna focus on a negative, you're gonna focus on a positive, but meaning making comes and it's triggered by us actually engaging with those negative experiences. So we do have to engage with those experiences and we do have to kind of try to find meaning in those experiences.

17:13 - And it's through us kind of learning how to integrate that optimistic thinking into our meaning making that will help us develop those, those, high levels of resilience over time. So my main hope is that they understand firstly that emotions are not the full story. What determines our resilience is complex and the main underlying factors seems to be these deliberate thinking processes, but they cannot be understood on their own.

17:35 - They have to be understood within the context of meaning making. And so within this, within this overall picture, I want us to start, I want people to think about ways in which they can on a whole generally think more positively about themselves, about their experiences. And so start kind of developing higher levels of positive thinking within that engagement with their experiences and trying to think, trying to reduce our tendency to ruminate on those past experiences

17:59 - and failures, but in, in a way that does not prevent us from trying to fit those, those new experiences into our schemas and having a deeper understanding of what's happened to us.

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