Conservation of Resources Theory: The Central Role of Resource Loss and Gain in Understanding Retraumatization

doi:10.4324/9780203866320-5

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Conservation of Resources Theory: The Central Role of Resource Loss and Gain in Understanding Retraumatization

ABSTRACT

Conservation of Resources (COR) theory is a motivational model of the development and maintenance of stress that focuses on the disproportionate impact of resource loss compared to resource gain (Hobfoll, 1988, 1989, 1998). One central tenet of COR theory, then, is that resource loss is significantly more powerful than resource gain.