ABSTRACT
P sychosocial resources are the skills, beliefs, talents, and individual personality factors that infl uence how people manage stressful events. They include self-esteem, optimism, a sense of mastery, active coping skills, and social support. Without them, stress can take a great toll on psychological well-being, on biological responses to stress, and ultimately on health, but with these resources come at least three kinds of benefi ts. First, psychosocial resources help people to appraise potential stressors in more benign ways. Threatening events seem less so when people are armed with psychosocial resources. Second, they help people cope with the inevitable taxing events that they encounter. Psychosocial resources are reliably related to active coping strategies that involve enlisting social support, managing emotional responses to stress, and gathering information and taking direct action. People with psychosocial resources are less likely to cope through maladaptive avoidant behaviors, such as substance abuse or withdrawal. Finally, psychosocial resources foster resilience in the face of major stressors, such as natural disasters and health threats (Taylor, 1983).
