An empirical evaluation of The Resilience Shield model

When we started developing the Resilience Shield, it was critical to us that any model we came up with not only reflected our own observations, experience and research, but was able to stand up to scientific scrutiny.  This was a driving force in us developing the Resilience Survey and applying for an Australian Commonwealth Government research grant to test us.  Through this process, we were able to hand our Resilience Shield model over to Dr Lies Notebaert and her team at the University of Western Australia and ask her – in the politest possible way – to break it!

Our purpose in doing this was to pressure-test the Resilience Shield – to validate our concept of a dynamic, multifactorial and modifiable approach to resilience and to provide a tool whereby individuals can benchmark their resilience and focus their efforts on the areas that will count the most.  In short, rather than just hoping that the Resilience Shield would help people develop their resilience, we wanted to prove it!

We’re delighted to say that, while Lies’s contributions have been invaluable in furthering our understanding of resilience and improving our model, the fundamental Resilience Shield concept is sound!  Today’s publication of Lies’s peer-reviewed article within BMC Psychology stands as testimony to the overall efficacy of the model.  Each of the modifiable Resilience Shield layers – Mind, Body, Social and Professional – “explain independent variance in either dispositional resilience scores, or dispositional vulnerability scores“.  In other words, all of these layers contribute independently and significantly to your resilience.

Lies’s research has highlighted some areas for continued improvement in terms of the measurement of metrics within the model – notably within the Body Layer – and we look forward to the next steps in furthering our understanding of the constituent elements of resilience and how we can improve them.

Click here to read the full peer-reviewed publication.