PARENT AND ADOLESCENT CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAMILY HARDINESS IN
THE WAKE OF A NATURAL DISASTER
by
Iris Fraude McMillan
A thesis submitted to the faculty of
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master of Arts in
Psychology
Charlotte
2021
Approved by:
______________________________
Dr. Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling
______________________________
Dr. Laura M. Armstrong
______________________________
Dr. Erika Montanaro
______________________________
Dr. Mark DeHaven
ii
©2021
Iris Fraude McMillan
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
iii
ABSTRACT
IRIS FRAUDE MCMILLAN. Parent and Adolescent Contributions to Family Hardiness
in the Wake of a Natural Disaster. (Under the direction of DR. JENNIFER
LANGHINRICHSEN-ROHLING)
Researchers have typically focused on individuals’ abilities to respond to natural
disasters, while family processes post-disaster have received far less attention. Yet a
family may be more than a sum of its parts and little is known about how the resilience
and vulnerabilities of individual family members contribute to their overall perceptions of
their families’ strength. To fill this gap, this study investigated how mothers’ and
adolescents’ reports of their individual resilience and personal level of emotion
dysregulation predicted their perceptions of family hardiness after experiencing an
impactful natural disaster (i.e., a tornado that destroyed the adolescents’ high school).
Data from a sample of 29 mother-adolescent dyads (M
age
= 45.07 years and 16.66 years)
were analyzed using Actor-Partner Interdependence Modelling. Results indicated that
greater emotion regulation difficulties, but not individual resilience were predictive of
higher levels of family hardiness among families surviving a natural disaster. Numerous
problems with the family hardiness measure were uncovered suggesting the need for
further conceptual, definitional, and measurement clarity for this construct. Thus, these
findings should be interpreted with caution. Moreover, the mechanisms responsible for
the findings of the current study remain subject for future research.
iv
DEDICATION
This thesis is dedicated to the 2012 Murphy Panthers and their families who showed
resilience and hardiness throughout everything they endured.
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge and thank the chair of my thesis committee, Dr. Jennifer
Langhinrichsen-Rohling. Your commitment to my professional and personal
development has been exceptional and I am beyond grateful for your support. I also
would like to express my gratitude towards my committee members for their invaluable
feedback and support with this project. I am also deeply grateful for the THRIVE
relationships lab. Exciting research is even more exciting when it is shared with amazing
lab members. Finally, I would like to thank my biggest supporter, Christopher McMillan
for always being by my side every step of the way.
vii
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE 1: Adolescent Participant Demographics 43
TABLE 2: Mother Participant Demographics 43
TABLE 3: Descriptive Statistics and Pearson Correlations for Resilience, Emotion
Dysregulation, and Family Hardiness 44
TABLE 4: Effect Estimates for the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model of Resilience
predicting Family Hardiness 44
TABLE 5: Effect Estimates for the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model of Emotion
Dysregulation predicting Family Hardiness 44
1
INTRODUCTION
On December 25th, 2012 a powerful winter storm made its way through the deep
south of the United States ranging from Texas to Alabama. A massive tornado outbreak
developed from this storm and generated a total of 31 tornadoes, also known as the
Christmas day tornados. In Mobile, AL, the tornado outbreak caused widespread damage
to trees and powerlines, homes, and other structures. A large wedge of an EF2 tornado
directly hit an historic high school located in the middle of town and resulted in severe
damage. The entire roof of the school's auditorium and band building were torn off, other
roofs on the school were also lifted off and deposited back onto the buildings, and six
portable classrooms were leveled. Due to the significant damage to the school’s structure,
students and faculty were relocated to a suburban magnet school to finish the 2012 school
year. Unfortunately, they quickly discovered that the magnet school was already filled
with middle school students; thus, the high school students were eventually placed in
portable classrooms located in a fenced-in gravel area behind the magnet school for the
remainder of the school year. Although students were brought back to the historic high
school for the 2013/2014 school year, rebuilding efforts extended over two years with the
severely damaged auditorium finally being reopened in 2016. With the high school
serving some of the poorest neighborhoods in Mobile, AL and 43.34% of its student body
receiving free lunch (Alabama Department of Education, 2016), the temporary relocation
of the school added physical disruptions to an already vulnerable community.
Physical disruptions such as those experienced by the Mobile community are
common consequences of natural disasters and are known to extend the duration and
impact of traumatic events (World Health Organization, 1992). Unfortunately, the
2
Christmas day tornadoes were not the only natural disaster impacting Mobile, AL, as an
EF1 tornado taking a similar path had occurred just five days prior. Such increases in the
frequency and severity of natural disasters, are common, yet neglected, consequences of
climate change (Boon et al., 2012). In particular, the Southeast and Midwest of the
United States have been frequently and negatively impacted by severe tornadoes and
hurricanes (Holland & Bruyère, 2014). These tornadoes and hurricanes range in severity,
destructiveness, and long-term impacts on those affected.
While the economic impact of natural disasters may be central to individual,
family, and community recovery and is primarily targeted by disaster relief efforts,
natural disasters can also result in severe and enduring psycho-social loss (e.g., loss of a
defined work occupation and roles; Hackbarth et al., 2012; Reich, 2006). Per definition, a
disaster is conceptualized as an event that causes severe ecological and psychosocial
disruption, that greatly exceeds the coping capacity of those affected by it (World Health
Organization, 1992). Natural disasters not only have a direct detrimental impact on
families through the destruction of homes, schools, and property, but also through their
induction of subsequent psychosocial transitions (Almedom, 2005). When families are
confronted with a stressful event, such as a natural disaster, a set of demands is placed on
the family unit. These include coping with the stressor/traumatic event itself, handling the
hardships associated with the stressor, and continuing to manage prior
experiences/stressors (e.g., living in an under-resourced community, poverty) that can
exacerbate the impact of the traumatic event (McCubbin & Patterson, 2008). Thus, with
the increasing prevalence of natural disasters and the growing recognition of their
potential for long-lasting impact, it is important to understand not only how families are
3
impacted by these types of events and whether pre-existing family vulnerabilities can
impede recovery efforts, but also what individual and systemic capacities families have to
endure and recover from natural disasters.
Family processes (i.e., family cohesion) are well studied and are known to buffer
the stressful life experiences of individual family members in general (Waysman et al.,
2001) and adolescents in particular (Kingon & O’Sullivan, 2001). Yet, research suggests
that a family units’ capacity for adaptation is likely to be influenced by the personal
strengths and weaknesses of each family member (Walsh, 1996, 2002, 2003, 2016).
However, it is unknown whether each family member contributes equally to this equation
or whether some family members (e.g., potentially parents and/or mothers) have a greater
influence on family outcomes than others (e.g., children). Therefore, the aim of the
current study was to investigate family level post-disaster processes. More specifically,
this study explored how family units adapted to and coped with a natural disaster that
impacted adolescents from an under-resourced community by examining the role of two
family member’s (parent and adolescent) risk and protective factors on one key family
process (hardiness).
Literature Review
Two theoretical frameworks, namely the Bioecological Model of Human
Development and the Conservation of Resources Theory, were utilized to conceptually
understand how families are impacted by natural disasters. Each is described below.
Bioecological Model of Human Development
The bioecological model of human development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris,
2006) offers a relevant framework not only for understanding the intersecting influences
4
of personal, social, and ecological contexts across time and how they relate to the impact
of natural disasters, but also for the identification of factors within the ecosystem that
may help facilitate recovery (Boon et al., 2012). The model consists of a series of
concentric circles that reflect the various social systems in which the individual is
embedded. More specifically, the microsystem is thought to reflect the individual’s
immediate environment and its interaction, i.e., family relationships, whereas the
mesosystem includes more proximal interactions between various aspects of the
microsystem (e.g., between parents and their offspring’s school). Furthermore, the
exosystem entails distal interactions (i.e., indirect relationships such as larger societal
structures) and is embedded in the overall temporal context, also known as the
chronosystem (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Thus, this model not only acknowledges
individual characteristics and behavior but also considers the influence of larger contexts
(e.g., family systems, community structures) as well as their interactions to understand
the impact of natural disasters.
Furthermore, the bioecological model of human development connotes that
changes in one aspect of the microsystem can challenge other microsystemic aspects. For
instance, a loss of community resources (i.e., reduced availability of social programs/after
school programs) has been shown to negatively impact the quality of the adolescent-
parent relationships, particularly in the context of other vulnerabilities such as low
income (Lerner & Castellino, 2002). In other words, the quality of family relationships
and processes is influenced by other factors in the immediate family environment.
Especially in the context of natural disasters, this interdependence between individuals
and their immediate environment is key to understanding post-crisis family processes.
5
For example, among survivors of Hurricane Katrina, family factors, such as parent-
provided social support were shown to be predictive of youth’s positive adjustment to the
natural disaster (Vigna et al., 2009). Although this framework allows the allocation of
protective and risk factors across all system levels, unfortunately, it provides little
guidance on specific predictors of family units’ post-disaster adaptation and coping.
Conservation of Resources Theory
The Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory (Hobfoll & Schumm, 2002) is a
second theoretical framework that is particularly well-suited to discern the impact of
natural disasters on families. COR is an empirically supported resource-based stress
theory that postulates that a misfit between personal, social, economic, and environmental
resources and external demands results in a stress response (Hobfoll, 2001). More
specifically, according to COR, stress occurs when resources are lost or threatened, e.g.,
through natural disasters, or when individuals are unable to gain sufficient resources
despite significant resource investment, e.g., unfruitful rebuilding efforts.
Within this framework, resource gain has been shown to be crucial for post-
disaster psychosocial functioning. For example, Bakic and Ajdukovic (2019) found that
an increase in individual resources after a severe flooding event was associated with a
decrease in post-traumatic stress symptoms and an increase in life satisfaction, one and a
half years after the disaster. Additionally, they also found that a decrease in interpersonal
resources was significantly associated with an increase in post-traumatic stress and
depressive symptoms (Bakic & Ajdukovic, 2019). In contrast, communities, institutions,
or families who cannot cope with a stressor through the investment of other resources
(i.e., low resource communities, or financially challenged families) are particularly
6
vulnerable to the impact of natural disasters (Holmgrenn et al., 2017). For instance, Lowe
et al. (2016) studied two population-based samples from communities affected by
Hurricane Sandy 12 to16 months (n = 421) and 25 to 28 months (n = 420) post-disaster
and found that individuals living in low socioeconomic status communities were at a
heightened risk for post-traumatic stress symptoms, even two years after the hurricane.
Thus, the absence of pre-disaster monetary and interpersonal resources appears to have a
long-lasting, detrimental impact on the mental health of natural disaster survivors.
Although the conservation of resources theory is commonly used to study the
relevance of socioeconomic resources, it can also be used to better understand the role of
family resources (e.g., resilience, emotion regulation) for the adaptation to and coping
with natural disasters. One theoretical domain to consider when examining how families
navigate stressors and cope with crisis is an internal resource, namely family hardiness, a
construct central to the current study.
Family Hardiness – A Critical Resource
Family hardiness has been defined as a family’s internal strengths and persistence
marked by their perceived control over life events as well as their sense of
meaningfulness in life, involvement in activities, and a dedication to master and traverse
new and challenging experiences as a family unit (Figley, 1989). Furthermore, family
hardiness includes the family’s stress resistance and their resources for adaptation that
represent a buffer or mediating factor amidst the impact of other stressors and demands.
Although the terms family hardiness and family resilience are oftentimes used
interchangeably, it is important to highlight their conceptual differences. Family
resilience refers to a family’s capacity to endure and recover from stressful life
7
challenges (Walsh, 1996, 2002, 2003, 2016), entailing an interaction between risk and
protective factors relative to a specified outcome (Patterson, 2002). In other words,
family resilience is delineated in terms of risk and protective factors. Family hardiness on
the other hand is thought to capture “the characteristics, dimensions and properties of
families which help families to be resilient to disruption in the face of change and
adaptive in the face of crisis situations” (McCubbin & McCubbin, 1988, p. 248).
Therefore, family hardiness can be considered an antecedent of family resilience, that
constitutes a critical strength of families as it relates to their ability to reduce stress.
In the context of natural disasters, family hardiness has been shown to be a strong
predictor of family coping. For example, among a sample of 452 Hurricane Katrina
survivors, family hardiness, as measured by the Family Hardiness Index (McCubbin et
al., 1996), emerged as a strong predictor of family coping. More specifically, survivors of
Hurricane Katrina who viewed the hurricane’s impact on their family as a challenge and
opportunity for growth were more likely to effectively cope (Hackbarth et al., 2012).
Family coping, in turn, is known to be a significant predictor of reduced post-disaster
psychological distress (Sattler, 2006). Meanwhile, low family hardiness was also shown
to be predictive of the development of post-traumatic stress disorder among victims of
the Yugoslav wars (Jovanovic et al., 2004). Consequently, family hardiness appears to be
a key factor that promotes a family’s ability to adapt to and cope with a significant
challenge such as a natural disaster.
Finally, there is empirical and theoretical support for a bioecological approach to
the study of family hardiness. Through a bioecological lens, the interdependence of
individuals within various systems (i.e., members of the family on a microsystemic level)
8
is an important aspect of a family unit's strength and functioning (Masten, 2016). In other
words, a family’s capacity to endure and recover from a stressful life challenge and to
emerge as an even stronger, more resourceful, and more resilient family unit (Walsh,
1996, 2002, 2003, 2016) entails an interaction among individual family member’s risk
and protective factors. In the following, resilience, a protective factor, and emotion
dysregulation, a risk factor, and their associations with family hardiness will be
discussed.
Resilience – A Contributing Factor
While resilience has been traditionally defined as an individual's capacity to
bounce back from adversity (e.g., Sippel et al., 2015), its conceptualization varies
substantially and is influenced by the historical and sociocultural context in which the
research was conducted (Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013). Most commonly, resilience is
characterized as either a personality trait, a dynamic process, or an outcome.
Representing a conceptual shift from a deficit-oriented approach to a strength-based
focus, these three conceptualizations are representative of different research orientations
and reflect the movement to a more ecological framework.
In its early stages, research on resilience was primarily concerned with the
individual. This is reflected in the early trait conceptualizations. For example, Block and
Block (1982) used the term “ego-resilience” to describe an overall protective personality
trait marked by resourcefulness, character strength, and functional flexibility in response
to environmental demands. Early research utilizing this trait conceptualization of
resilience primarily focused on characteristics within the individual with external factors
receiving little attention. However, the growing awareness about influential external
9
factors rapidly led to conceptualizing resilience as a process rather than a personality
trait. In contrast to earlier trait conceptualization, resilience was then defined as “a
dynamic process encompassing positive adaptation within the context of significant
adversity” (Luthar et al., 2000, p. 543). Thus, resilience as a process is thought to develop
and unfold across the different levels of the bioecological systems model, acknowledging
the temporal and contextual variability in the effect of protective and promotive factors
(Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013). Conceptualizing resilience by clarifying the conditions under
which risk exposure contributes to adversity and by examining the developmental timing
of adaptive processes, allowed researchers to further explore resilience promoting
protective factors (Kim-Cohen, 2007). Resilience promoting factors in turn, are thought
to work together to contribute to a good outcome regardless of the experience of stressors
(Hjemdal et al., 2006). This is reflected in the conceptualization of resilience as an
outcome —the level of adjustment after a stressful event—which implicitly connotes that
resilience is unmeasurable without the presence of a distressing event which requires
adjustment (Mancini & Bonanno, 2006, 2009).
While the three conceptualizations of resilience all highlight different aspects of
the construct, they can be best summarized and aligned as sharing the definition that
resilience is a positive personality characteristic that enhances individual adaptation
(Wagnild & Young, 1993). In short, resilience is the product of a system's capacity for
adaptation and is observed as individuals adjust to stressful events. In other words,
individual resilience depends on the resilience of other, connected systems, entailing a
multitude of processes that arise from dynamic interactions between systems (Boon et al.,
2012; Masten, 2018). Thus, the development of individual resilience is based on the
10
interaction between an individual and their environments, highlighting the importance of
a bio-ecological approach to the study of resilience.
A bioecological approach to the study of resilience in the micosystemic context
has been reflected in third wave models of family resilience. For instance, the Family
Resilience Model (FRM; Henry et al., 2015) suggests that even in the context of severe
disruption of the family’s dynamics and across the experience of multiple family-level
risk factors, families still have the potential for positive adaptation based upon protective
factors available at different levels of the family system as well as within the
bioecological system (Henry et al., 2015). This represents an integration of theories on
individual resilience, ideas from family systems theory, and models of family stress and
coping. Moreover, within this framework, the family’s ability to adapt to and cope with
significant challenges is thought to represent the synergy of a family’s relationship
patterns. Those relationship patterns are commonly summarized as family adaptive
systems (FAS; Patterson, 2002). The interactions constituting the FAS span across
various domains including emotional climate, authority and control, worldview, and
beliefs system, as well as organizational processes facilitating the maintenance of the
family system (Henry et al., 2015; Patterson, 2002; Walsh, 2016). These components of
family interactions, in turn, provide the family with a foundation from which to
accomplish specific family tasks. For instance, positive emotional family climate was
shown to be a protective factor, promoting children’s adaptive expression and regulation
of strong negative emotions such as anger (Houltberg et al., 2012). Relatedly, parents
who experience difficulties in emotion regulation were shown to also report lower levels
of family functioning, less closeness, and more conflict with their adolescent children (Li
11
et al., 2017). Thus, interactions constituting the emotional climate of the family are
important aspects of basic family functioning (Henry et al., 2015; Patterson, 2002) and
ultimately contribute to the family units’ capacity to endure and recover from a stressful
life challenge.
The Emotion System – Vulnerability within Family Adaptive Systems
The ability to identify, monitor, and respond to emotional experiences in response
to contextual demands (Gratz & Roemer, 2004) is central as it constitutes a critical
component of social interactions and represents an important capacity for interpersonal
relationships. This skill also affects how individuals engage with their environment. For
instance, difficulties in emotion regulation are reflected in communication behaviors
(Bradbury & Shaffer, 2012), influencing the emotional tone of communication and the
expression of thoughts and intentions (Lopes et al., 2005). The inability to regulate
emotions in an appropriate manner can contribute to difficulties in social interactions and
has been linked to an increased risk for life-long mental health issues (Kalmakis &
Chandler, 2014; Poole et al., 2018). Additionally, the ability to communicate one’s needs
properly is important for obtaining psychosocial resources, such as social support
(DeSteno et al., 2013). Thus, emotion socialization, or the ways in which emotional
competencies such as emotion expression, recognition, and regulation are acquired,
represents an important part of development.
Models of emotion socialization (e.g., Morris et al., 2007) highlight the
importance of microsystemic intra-familiar processes for the development of emotion
regulation. The way parents respond to their off-springs’ emotions is important for the
development of emotion regulation capacities (Morris et al., 2007). Not only does
12
parental responsiveness involve the expression of (positive and negative) emotions in the
parent-child relationship, but parental responsiveness also contributes to the overall
emotional climate of a family. These emotion-related family processes can also be
observed within the context of other microsystemic family processes, such as family
cohesion (Henry et al., 2015). Furthermore, there is empirical support for the
intergenerational transmission of emotion regulation difficulties with greater parental
emotion dysregulation shown to be associated with greater emotion dysregulation among
adolescents (Buckholdt et al., 2014). Similarly, parents and adolescents' use of emotion
regulation strategies has been shown to be associated (Silva et al., 2018). More
specifically, in a sample of 33 12- to 18-year-old adolescent–father–mother triads, Silva
et al. (2018) examined adolescents’ and parents' use of two emotion regulation strategies,
namely cognitive appraisal and expressive suppression, in their daily life using
momentary assessments. The results of the study indicated that mothers’, but not fathers’,
use of both emotion regulation strategies, cognitive appraisal, and expressive
suppression, were associated with adolescent’s use of both emotion regulation strategies
and that this association was mediated by the quality of the mother-adolescent
relationship (Silva et al., 2018). These findings suggest not only that a mother's own
emotion regulation skills are important for the development of children’s emotion
regulation early on in life but also that mothers continue to be influential for adolescents’
development and expression of emotion regulation. Yet, it remains unknown how much
adolescents, as opposed to mothers, contribute to the overall emotional climate of the
family and how their emotional dysregulation is linked to the family’s internal strengths
after a natural disaster.
13
Furthermore, there are multiple reasons why adolescence represents a prime time
to study processes related to emotion regulation after a natural disaster. First, adolescent
development is characterized by substantial biological, emotional, and psychosocial
changes; these are more likely to provoke intense experiences of emotional arousal (Silk
et al., 2003). Consequently, adolescents may be more susceptible to experiencing an
emotional impact post exposure to a natural disaster. Secondly, the rapid development of
mental and physical capacities during this developmental period increases adolescents’
stress reactivity (Spear, 2000). It also makes adolescents vulnerable to the effects of
events that require self-regulation as this ability is not fully matured until young
adulthood (DeRosa & Pelcovitz, 2008; Steinberg, 2001). For adolescents, emotion
dysregulation represents a harmful transdiagnostic risk factor for a wide range of
psychopathology (McLaughlin et al., 2011). It is well known that various forms of
psychopathology, especially affective and behavior disorders, increase substantially
during adolescence (Silk et al., 2003). Adolescents’ inability to regulate their emotions
has been shown to also function as an intrapersonal mechanism that explains the
detrimental impact of stressful life events on adolescent mental health outcomes
(McLaughlin & Hatzenbuehler, 2009). Therefore, emotion dysregulation represents a
central individual risk factor that not only increases vulnerability to the impact of natural
disasters but also shapes interactions contributing to a family unit’s capacity to endure
and recover from a natural disaster. Nevertheless, little is known about the relative
influence of emotion dysregulation on family hardiness after a natural disaster. The aim
of the current study was to fill this gap by examining the interdependence of mothers and
14
adolescents’ emotion dysregulation to predict their family’s post-disaster internal strength
or hardiness.
Additionally, adolescence is also known as a pivotal time for psychosocial
development marked by the negotiation of autonomy-related changes within the
microsystem. As such, enhanced knowledge about an adolescent’s role in post-crisis
family processes is tantamount. While the traditional conceptualization of adolescent
development commonly denotes this period as a time of heightened “storm and stress”
(Arnett, 1999), the idea of adolescence being a time of distress and conflict has been
challenged and is no longer considered to be normative (Steinberg, 2001). Although
adolescents’ strivings for autonomy from parental guidance can be a potential source of
conflict, the co-occurring acquisition of new skills can represent a significant contribution
to the family system. For instance, with the parent-adolescent relationship becoming
more egalitarian during adolescence (De Goede et al., 2009), the views, strengths and
functioning of both parties (adolescents, parents) are likely to be important (and perhaps
more equal) contributors to the overall resources of the family. While prior research has
highlighted the important role of mothers' emotion regulation strategies as a coping
resource (e.g., Silva et al., 2018), other strengths (e.g., maternal resilience) of potential
importance for adolescents (e.g., family hardiness) to cope with a natural disaster are less
explored.
The Current Study
While considerable research has focused on individual risk and protective factors
that impact an individual’s ability to respond to natural disasters, they are commonly
studied at the individual level. Similarly, previous assessments of the family unit’s ability
15
to adapt and cope have primarily relied upon the self-report of one family member,
oftentimes the parent (e.g., Campbell & Demi, 2000; Clark, 2002; Weiss et al., 2013). To
address this gap, the current study sought to study post-disaster family level processes by
utilizing a dyadic approach that included the maternal caregiver and the impacted
adolescent. Specifically, this study considered how family units adapted and coped with a
natural disaster that impacted adolescents from an under-resourced community.
Specifically, the study simultaneously examined the role of two family member’s (mother
and adolescent) risk and protective factors on family hardiness. With the utilization of
advanced dyadic modelling, the proposed study had the goal of filling in identified gaps
in the literature by addressing the following aims:
Aim 1: To investigate how adolescents and mothers’ individual resilience affected
their perceptions of family hardiness.
Hypothesis 1: Adolescents’ and mothers’ individual resilience would
significantly and positively predict family hardiness.
Hypothesis 1.1: Adolescent’s individual resilience would significantly and
positively predict their own perception of their family’s hardiness (actor
effect).
Hypothesis 1.2: Mother’s individual resilience would significantly and
positively predict their own perception of their family’s hardiness (actor
effect).
Hypothesis 1.3: Adolescent’s individual resilience would significantly and
positively predict their mother’s perception of their family’s hardiness
(partner effect).
16
Hypothesis 1.4: Mother’s individual resilience would significantly and
positively predict their adolescent’s perception of their family’s hardiness
(partner effect).
Aim 2: To examine how adolescents and mothers’ difficulties in emotion regulation
would relate to their perceptions of family hardiness.
Hypothesis 2: Difficulties with emotion regulation among adolescents and
their mothers would be predictive of lower family hardiness.
Hypothesis 2.1: Adolescents’ difficulties in emotion regulation would
significantly and negatively predict family hardiness (actor effect).
Hypothesis 2.2: Mothers’ difficulties in emotion regulation would
significantly and negatively predict family hardiness (actor effect).
Hypothesis 2.3: Adolescent’s difficulties in emotion regulation would
significantly and negatively predict their mother’s perception of their
family’s hardiness (partner effect).
Hypothesis 2.4: Mother’s difficulties in emotion regulation would
significantly and negatively predict their adolescent’s perception of their
family’s hardiness (partner effect).
Aim 3: To add to existing research on family hardiness by studying the association
of resilience and each of the three components of family hardiness separately to
obtain a more nuanced understanding of family processes.
Hypothesis 3: Individual resilience would be a significant predictor of all
three components of family hardiness.
17
Hypothesis 3.1: Adolescent’s and their mother’s reports of individual
resilience would significantly and positively predict innovative and active
family efforts (challenge).
Hypothesis 3.2: Adolescent’s and their mother’s reports of individual
resilience would significantly and positively predict the family’s sense of
internal strengths, dependability, and ability to work together
(commitment).
Hypothesis 3.3: Adolescents and their mothers’ reports of individual
resilience would significantly and positively predict the family's sense of
being in control of family life (control).
Aim 4: To add to existing research on family hardiness by examining whether
adolescents’ and mothers’ perception of their family hardiness (and its components)
would significantly differ with respect to their individual resilience and difficulties
in emotion regulation.
Hypothesis 4.1: Adolescents’ and mothers’ reports of family hardiness
would significantly differ with respect to their individual resilience.
Hypothesis 4.2: Adolescents’ and mothers’ reports of family hardiness
would significantly differ with respect to their individual difficulties in
emotion dysregulation.
Hypothesis 4.3: Adolescents’ and their mothers’ reports of the family’s
efforts to be innovative and active would significantly differ with respect
to their individual resilience.
18
Hypothesis 4.4: Adolescents’ and their mothers’ reports of the family’s co-
oriented commitment would significantly differ with respect to their
individual resilience.
Hypothesis 4.5: Adolescents’ and their mothers’ reports of the family's
sense of being in control of family life would significantly differ with
respect to their individual resilience.
19
METHOD
Participants
The current study utilized secondary data collected as part of the Family
Resiliency to Disaster Study, which recruited families with students attending a large
urban high school in Mobile, AL. The Family Resiliency to Disaster Study investigated
the impact of the 2012 Christmas day tornado, which occurred as part of a larger scale
tornado outbreak and produced significant damage to the area. A total of 29 mother-
adolescent dyads participated in the Family Resiliency to Disaster Study. Participating
adolescents were on average 16.7 years of age (SD = 1.01 years) and more than half of
the sample (69%) consisted of female identified individuals. Adolescents were
predominantly High school seniors at the time of their participation, but grade ten to 12
students were represented in the current sample. More than half (58.6%) of the
participants identified as African American/Black. Participating mothers were on average
45.1 years of age (SD = 6.43 years) and also African American/Black (57.1%). As it
pertains to the total household income, 70.4% of the participating mothers reported an
annual household income of less than $60,000. Participating mothers were predominantly
married (89.3%). Out of all married participating mothers, 57.1 % (16) reported having
been married before. Additional sample characteristics are displayed in Table 1 and Table
2.
Procedure
Participants were recruited via flyers distributed around the impacted high school
or handed out at school wide events from November 2013 to November 2014. Snowball
sampling was also used. Adolescents having attended high school at the time of the
20
December 25
th
, 2012 Christmas tornado were considered to be eligible for participation if
they were fluent in English and if their primary parent was at least 19 years of age and
agreed to participate. Eligible families were asked to come into the Family Resiliency
Lab. Informed consent of the parent was obtained in written format. Adolescents
completed an individual assent form. After consent and assent were obtained, each family
member was asked to complete an assessment package. While completing these forms,
the mother-adolescent dyads were separated. The individual assessment package
consisted of questionnaires about family functioning, family problem-solving strategies,
and adaptation to crisis. Questionnaires pertaining to participants' resilience, emotion
regulation, suicidal ideation, and other negative affective states (anxiety, depression,
stress) were also included in the individual assessment packages. On average, participants
spent one hour completing the paper-pencil questionnaire package and engaged in an
interaction task (not relevant for the current study). Participants were compensated for
their time with Visa gift cards. Measures pertinent to the current study are described
below.
Measures
Individual Resilience. The Resilience Scale (RS; Wagnild & Young, 1993) was
used to measure adolescents’ and mothers’ individual resilience. The measure consists of
25 items assessing various facets of resilience such as personal competency (e.g., “When
I make plans, I follow through with them”) and acceptance of self and life (e.g., “I do not
dwell on things that I can’t do anything about”). The items are scored on a 7-point scale
ranging from 1 (disagree) to 7 (agree), which are summed to obtain an overall resilience
score. Possible scores range from 25 to 175 with scores below 121 reflecting low
21
resilience, whereas scores of 147 or higher are reflective of high individual resilience.
The measure’s internal consistency was good to excellent in the current sample, with
Cronbach’s alpha= .89 and .96 for adolescents and mothers, respectively.
Individual Emotion Dysregulation. The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation
Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004) was used to assess difficulties in emotion
regulation. It consists of 36 items assessing six factors related to emotion dysregulation:
(1) Nonacceptance of emotional responses (e.g., “When I’m upset, I become angry with
myself for feeling that way”); (2) Difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior (e.g.,
“When I’m upset, I have difficulty thinking about anything else”); (3) Difficulties with
impulse control (e.g., “When I’m upset, I have difficulty controlling my behaviors”); (4)
Lack of emotional awareness (e.g., “I am attentive to my feelings”); (5) Limited access to
emotion regulation strategies (e.g., “When I’m upset, I believe there is nothing I can do to
make myself feel better”); and (6) Lack of emotional clarity (e.g., “I have difficulty
making sense out of my feelings”). Items are scored on a 5-point frequency scale ranging
from almost never (1) to almost always (5). Several items including those constituting the
lack of emotional awareness subscale are reverse scored. The measure yields a total score
summing the scores of all items, as well as six subscale scores. Higher DERS scores
suggest greater difficulties with emotion regulation. In prior research, the DERS has
demonstrated high internal consistency. The overall difficulties in emotion regulation
scale evidenced good internal consistency (α = .84) for the participating adolescent
sample and demonstrated similar internal consistency (α = .86) in the current sample of
mothers.
22
Family Hardiness. To measure the internal strength and durability of the family
unit, the Family Hardiness Index (FHI; McCubbin et al., 1996) was administered to both
adolescents and their mothers. The measure consists of 20 items and participants are
asked to indicate the degree to which each statement describes their current family
situation utilizing a 4-point Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (false) to 3 (true). There is
also a “not applicable” response which also receives a score of zero. Three different
dimensions of family hardiness are assessed: Commitment (e.g., “We have a sense of
being strong even when we face big problems”), Challenge (e.g., “We seem to encourage
each other to try new things and experiences”) and Control (e.g., “Most of the unhappy
things that happen to us are mainly due to bad luck”). To obtain a total score for family
hardiness, nine items are reversed before summing the values of all responses. Subscale
scores are obtained by adding up the values of the corresponding items. Across subscales
and the total score, higher scores indicate greater levels of internal strength and durability
of the focal family unit; the maximum possible total score is 60. The FHI evidenced good
internal consistency of .84 (Cronbach’s alpha) for its total score among adolescents, and
acceptable internal consistency with α = .70 among mothers. However, the internal
consistencies of the three subscales were considerably lower in the current sample with
Cronbach’s alphas of .58, .73, and .52 for adolescents on the Challenge, Commitment,
and Control subscales and internal consistencies of .20, .51, and .69 for mothers on the
Challenge, Commitment, and Control subscales. This was in stark contrast to existing
research on Hurricane Katrina survivors where the subscales evidenced Cronbach’s
23
alphas between .65 and .81 (Hackbarth et al., 2012)
1
. As a result, only the FHI total
scores were utilized for this study.
Demographic Information. Adolescents and their mothers were asked to answer
a set of questions pertaining to a) general demographic information (age, sex,
race/ethnicity, religion), b) household/family structure, c) military service, d) income and
disaster related financial assistance, and e) the impact of the tornado (i.e., financial,
social, economic).
1
Hackbarth et al. (2012) used the FHI in an adult sample consisting of 452 survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
The participants primarily identified as female and white, with an average age of 47.7 years.
24
STATISTICAL ANALYSES
Preliminary descriptive analyses of the data were conducted. These included the
estimation of covariance and mean structures (means, variances, covariances) as well as
correlations, univariate and bivariate distributions, and outliers. The initial screening of
the raw data indicated that data were missing at random (MAR) as indicated by a non-
significant Little’s MCAR test (𝝌
2
= 3.77, df = 10, p > .05). Missing values were
observed among the family hardiness outcome variables for both adolescents and their
parents with 25% missingness per variable. Thus, cases were excluded from subsequent
analysis yielding a final sample of 21 dyads. First and second order moments were
obtained, and the data were tested for multivariate outliers by calculating Mahalanobis
distances and testing their significance using the Chi Square test for significance. No
multivariate outliers were identified. Variance inflation factors (VIF) were obtained and
indicated the absence of collinearity. Skew and Kurtosis statistics were calculated. Apart
from mothers' resilience, which evidenced slight positive skew, all other variables
evidenced normal distribution in the current sample, as indicated by skewness and
kurtosis values of less than 1.96 (Kim, 2013). As the family hardiness subscales
Challenge, Commitment, and Control evidenced low internal consistencies for at least
one of the two dyad members, subscale analyses were deemed inappropriate and were not
conducted. Preliminary analyses were conducted in IBM SPSS for Mac.OS, Version 26.
Although participating dyad members are theoretically distinguishable (i.e., by
their position within the family system), dyads were treated as empirically
indistinguishable due to small sample size (Kenny et al., 2006). Multilevel modeling was
deemed to be appropriate considering the small sample size (n < 50) and the mixed
25
variables of indistinguishable dyad members. Generalized least squares analyses, a type
of linear mixed modeling that takes the correlation within dyads into account, as well as
correlated errors and restricted maximum likelihood estimation were utilized to estimate
Actor-Partner Interdependence Models (APIMs). Due to the indistinguishable nature of
the dyads, the two actor effects were set to be equal as well as the two partner effects.
Thus, only one actor and partner effect were estimated as direct effects were constrained
to equality due to indistinguishability. All predictor variables were grand-mean centered
prior to the estimation. To determine the amount of variance in family hardiness
explained by actor and partner effects, pseudo-R
2
was calculated using the formula
provided in Kenny et al. (2006). The parameter k (Kenny & Ledermann, 2010) , an index
reflecting the ratio of the partner effect to the actor effect, was obtained to detect
additional dyadic patterns (e.g., couple or contrast). The Monte-Carlo Method,
specifically the parametric bootstrap was used to obtain the confidence intervals for k
(Kenny & Ledermann, 2010). APIMs were estimated using the R package DyadR and
compared to results obtained from the APIM_MM shiny application (Kenny, 2015). No
differences between the RStudio estimated APIM models and the APIM_MM shiny
application were observed.
26
RESULTS
Descriptive Statistics
Across all participating adolescents, a moderate impact of the tornado during the
six months following the disaster was reported (M= 5.55, SD = 2.34; on a scale where 10
equals high impact and 1 equals low impact). Participating adolescents tended to report
either major (20.6%) or minor (38.0%) tornado damage in their immediate environment.
The financial situation of 86.2% (25) of the participating adolescents was reportedly
unaffected by the tornado and only 13.8% (4) expressed worries about the economic
impact of the tornado. Notably, 51.7% (15) of the adolescents were concerned about the
occurrence of another natural disaster. Participating mothers' reports about the impact of
the tornado during the six months following the disaster were also moderate (M = 6.54,
SD = 2.15) with 21.4% (6) reporting major damage and 39.3% (11) reporting minor
damage. For a majority of mothers (75%), their financial situation reportedly had not
changed. However, 32.1% (9) worried about the economic impact of the tornadoes and
21.4% (4) reported having received food stamps since the Christmas day tornadoes. Like
the participating adolescents, 50% of the participating mothers reported being worried
about the occurrence of another natural disaster. Interestingly, 21.4% of the participating
mothers and 20.7% of the participating adolescents indicated that the tornadoes had
improved their social relationships with family and friends.
As seen in Table 3, mothers and adolescents' average scores on the Resilience
scale were relatively high as indicated by means just below the ‘high resilience’ cut-off of
147. Furthermore, their average total scores on the Difficulties in Emotion Dysregulation
Scale (DERS) were indicative of moderate levels of emotion regulation. However, the
27
average family hardiness index (total score) was relatively low indicating that both
mothers and adolescents perceived their family to have little internal strength and
durability. As anticipated, there was a negative correlation between adolescents’
resilience and emotion dysregulation (r = -.39, p < .05) of moderate effect size. In other
words, greater individual resilience was related to reports of less emotional dysregulation
among adolescents. Similarly, mothers’ individual resilience was also negatively
correlated with their emotion dysregulation (r = .41, p < .05) and this association was of
moderate effect size. This suggests that greater resilience is associated with more emotion
regulation among adolescents and their mothers. Unexpectedly, mothers’ difficulties in
emotion regulation were positively associated with family hardiness (r = .49, p < .01) and
this relationship was of moderate effect size. More difficulties in emotion regulation were
associated with greater perceived internal strength and durability of the family unit
among mothers but not adolescents. As anticipated based on previous research (Silva et
al., 2018), adolescents’ reported emotion dysregulation was positively associated with
mothers’ emotion dysregulation (r = .32, p < .01). This association is of moderate effect
size and suggests that greater maternal emotion dysregulation is associated with greater
emotion dysregulation among adolescents. Unexpectedly, mothers’ and adolescents'
individual resilience (r = -.06) and mothers’ and adolescents’ perceived family hardiness
were not significantly correlated with one another (r =.24). No other variables, including
demographic variables, evidenced significant bivariate correlations with the focal
variables.
To assess the extent to which mothers’ and adolescents’ scores are associated with
one another (i.e., the degree of dependence in their reports), intraclass correlation
28
coefficient (ICC) for the predictor and outcome variables were calculated using Double-
Entry (Pairwise) ICC (r
p
; Alferes & Kenny, 2009; Gonzalez & Griffin, 1999; Griffin &
Gonzalez, 1995). As seen in Table 3, resiliency evidenced an intraclass correlation
coefficient close to zero suggesting the absence of dyadic dependence in the current
sample. Both, emotion dysregulation and family hardiness evidenced positive ICCs of
medium effect size suggesting that dyads were moderately similar in their overall
reported emotion dysregulation and perceived family hardiness. As intraclass correlation
coefficients are the quotient of the between-dyad variance and its divisor the total
variance, it can also be interpreted as the proportion of variance explained by the dyad.
While 6% of the variance in resilience in the current study was explained by mother-
adolescent dyads, 24% of the variance in Family Hardiness and 33% of the observed
variance in Emotion Dysregulation were due to dyads, highlighting the importance of
dyadic effect estimates in the analyses. To test the significance of the intraclass
correlation coefficients (r
p
), Z-tests were conducted. The result of Z-tests indicated that
the intraclass correlation coefficients for resilience, emotion dysregulation, and family
hardiness were non-significant (p’s > .05). This suggests a lack of statistically significant
agreement not only between mothers and adolescents reported resilience and emotion
dysregulation, but also their perception of family hardiness.
As noted previously, reliability analyses of dependent and independent variable
measures were conducted and revealed low internal consistencies for the three family
hardiness subscales of Challenge, Commitment, and Control for both mothers and
adolescents. This was surprising considering that the measure evidenced significant
correlations with other aspects of family functioning (see APPENDIX A). For example,
29
bivariate correlation of the FHI subscales were conducted with the subscales of the
Family Assessment Device (FAD; Epstein et al., 1983). For the adolescent sample,
significant, positive correlations of large effect size were evident for the Challenge and
Commitment subscale and the FAD subscales of Global Functioning (i.e., the overall
health/pathology of the family), Problem Solving (i.e., the family’s ability to resolve
problems), Roles (i.e., established patterns of behaviors for handling family functioning),
and Affective Responsiveness (i.e., ability to experience appropriate range of affect).
Additionally, significant positive correlations of moderate effect size were found for
Challenge and Commitment FHI subscales and the FAD Communication subscale (i.e.,
the exchange of information among family members) for adolescents. These findings
were only partially replicated in the sample of mothers, where similar correlations for the
FHI Commitment subscale were found. However, among mothers, the Challenge
subscale was not significantly correlated with any of the FAD subscales. Similarly, the
FHI Control subscale did not evidence significant correlations with any of the FAD
subscales in either sample, raising concerns about this subscale’s convergent validity. In
short, only the FHI Commitment subscale evidenced the moderately strong relationships
with other measures of positive family functioning for both adolescents and mothers.
Actor-Partner Interdependence Models
To examine Aim 1, an Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) with
adolescents’ and mothers’ resilience as independent variables and the two reports of
family hardiness (index scores) as dependent variables were estimated using generalized
least squares analysis with correlated errors and restricted maximum likelihood
estimation due to positive nonindependence (Gistelinck et al., 2018). As can be seen in
30
Table 4, there were no significant actor or partner effects of resilience on family
hardiness. As indicated by the estimated intercept, the predicted Family Hardiness total
score was 18.89 for mothers and adolescents with average resilience, (p < .01). Only
3.5% of the observed variance was explained by the actor and partner effects of
adolescents’ and mothers’ resilience on family hardiness.
To examine Aim 2, a second Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) with
adolescents’ and mothers’ emotion dysregulation (total score) as independent variables
and their reported family hardiness (index score) as dependent variables was estimated.
Similar to the first APIM, the predicted Family Hardiness total score was 18.73 for
mothers and adolescents with average emotion regulation and of significance (p < .01).
Furthermore, there was also a statistically significant actor effect on family hardiness (b =
.35, p < .05). This effect was of moderate effect size and suggests that adolescents’ and
mothers’ reports of greater difficulties with emotion regulation are associated with
reports of greater family hardiness. No significant partner effect was found (Table 5).
Although the partner effect was statistically not significant, the estimated ratio of
the partner effect to the actor effect provided preliminary evidence for a potential dyadic
pattern effect. Specifically, the actor and partner effects resulted in k that equaled -.56,
indicating a possible contrast pattern
2
, i.e., a positive actor effect and a negative partner
effect (Kenny & Cook, 1999). The 95% confidence interval for k obtained through
parametric bootstrapping ranged from -3.33 to 0.38, indicating that both a contrast pattern
and an actor-only pattern were possible. In other words, how a family member perceives
2
According to Kenny and Ledermann (2010), a contrast pattern exists when k equals –1 while an actor-
only pattern exists when k is equal to 0. A k of 0.5, an actor effect twice as large as the partner effect,
indicating something in between the couple and the actor-only pattern.
31
their family’s hardiness could be negatively predicted by the difference between the
person’s own emotion regulation difficulties and the emotion regulation difficulties of the
other family member (contrast pattern) as well as solely by their own emotion regulation
difficulties. The relative difference in emotion dysregulation could predict how hardy one
perceives their family to be. However, given that only the actor effect was significant, the
k parameter only provides preliminary support for a potential contrast pattern.
To examine Aim 3, three Actor-Partner Interdependence Models (APIMs) with
adolescents’ and mothers’ resilience as independent variables and each of the three
family hardiness subscales as dependent variables were proposed. However, due to the
low reliability of the Family Hardiness Index subscales in the current sample, the third
aim of this study could not be addressed.
To examine Aim 4, the two actor paths and two partner paths of the APIMs
described in Aim 1 to Aim 3 were proposed to be constrained to equality and then to be
compared to the baseline APIM (estimated in Aim 1) using Chi-square (χ²) difference test
statistics. However, the significance testing of Double-Entry (Pairwise) intraclass
correlation coefficients indicated indistinguishability of the dyads, thus requiring the use
of multilevel modeling with both actor and partner effects constrained to equality in the
initial analyses. Hence, aim four could not be addressed.
32
DISCUSSION
The current study examined post-disaster family level processes by utilizing a
dyadic approach. Specifically, this study considered how family units adapted and coped
with a natural disaster that particularly impacted adolescents from an under-resourced
community. The role of two family member’s (mother and adolescent) risk and protective
factors on family hardiness was examined with the overall goal to 1) investigate how
adolescents’ and mothers’ individual resilience would affect their perceptions of family
hardiness, 2) examine how adolescents’ and mothers’ difficulties in emotion regulation
would relate to their perceptions of family hardiness, 3) study the dyadic association
between resilience and the three components of family hardiness, namely challenge,
commitment, and control, and 4) examine whether adolescents’ and mothers’ perceptions
of their family hardiness (and its components) are significantly different with respect to
their individual resilience and difficulties in emotion regulation. Results relevant to each
of the proposed aims will be discussed in turn.
First, it was noteworthy that, at the outset of the study, the bivariate relationships
among the variables were not as anticipated. Specifically, although individual resilience
was positively associated with emotion regulation among mothers and adolescents in the
current study, individual resilience was not significantly related to either family
member’s report of family hardiness. Moreover, with a few exceptions, the subscales of
the Family Hardiness Index (FHI) evidenced poor internal consistency for at least one of
the dyad members. However, in line with prior research (e.g., Mestre et al., 2017), higher
levels of individual resilience were shown to be associated with more emotion regulation
33
among both adolescents and their mothers. Also, as was found with Silva et al. (2018),
mother’s and adolescent’s reports of emotional dysregulation were shown to be related.
Contrary to existing dyadic research reporting actor effects for resilience factors
(e.g., Rayens & Svavarsdottir, 2003), neither significant actor nor partner effects for
resilience on family hardiness were found. Furthermore, the absence of significant actor
and partner effects was contrary to existing theoretical frameworks, namely, the systems
concept of mutual causality which suggests an interdependence between individual and
family resilience factors (Hawley & DeHaan, 1996). However, the results of the current
study do suggest that emotion dysregulation is an important of family hardiness.
Unexpectedly, greater difficulties with emotion regulation were associated with
greater perceived internal strength and perceptions of greater durability of the family unit
among mothers but not adolescents. Actor-effects indicated that greater difficulties with
emotion regulation were predictive of higher levels of self-reported family hardiness.
Furthermore, the estimated ratio of the partner effect to the actor effect provided
preliminary evidence for a dyadic pattern effect. Thus, it may be possible that the effect
of adolescent’s emotion dysregulation on their own perception of family hardiness may
be the opposite of the effect the mother’s emotion dysregulation has on the adolescent’s
perception of family hardiness and vice versa. Adolescent’s difficulties in emotion
regulation might be positively associated with their perception of their family hardiness
while also negatively associated with the mother’s perception of their family hardiness.
Thus, if a dyadic pattern effect were present, it may have provided evidence for
developmental differences and adolescent’s role in post-crisis family processes.
34
Yet, the absence of significant partner effects does not support such conclusions
and the possibility of a contrast pattern should be further examined in a data set with
distinguishable dyads. Consequently, the underlying mechanism through which
individual resilience and emotion dysregulation impact family hardiness among low-
resourced families remains not well understood. In other words, the interdependence of
individuals within various systems (i.e., members of the family on a microsystemic level)
and its overall contributions to a family unit's capacity to endure and recover from a
natural disaster remains needs additional attention.
Overall, the bivariate association between emotion dysregulation and increased
family hardiness among adolescents and their mothers, as well as the positive actor effect
both suggest that mothers’ and adolescents’ emotion dysregulation could be directly and
indirectly related to their own perception of their family’s internal strength and durability.
It also may be possible that mothers and adolescents with greater emotion regulation
difficulties are more likely to rely on other family members for the management of the
family’s stress and adaptation due to an awareness of their own deficits. It is possible that
other mediating factors, such as the quality of the mother-adolescent relationship, may
impact post disaster family processes at the individual and dyadic levels as suggested by
other research findings (e.g., Li et al., 2018). Relatedly, individual resilience may have a
moderating effect on the association between emotion dysregulation and higher levels of
family hardiness. It will be important for future research to further disentangle the dyadic
association between emotion dysregulation and family hardiness to better understand
post-disaster protective and risk factors.
35
Implications
Literature on resilience-related family processes continues to represent a mixture
of family stress and family strengths foci (Hawley & DeHaan, 1996). However,
considering a combination of both, as was done in the current study, did yield unexpected
findings. More specifically, the absence of a significant association between individual
resilience and family hardiness gives rise to important theoretical considerations. The
Family Resilience Model (FRM; Henry et al., 2015) suggests that families' positive
adaptation to the severe disruption of the family’s dynamics (e.g., due to a natural
disaster) is largely impacted by the availability of protective factors. Yet, the results of
the current study suggest that high levels of individual resilience on its own are not
predictive of mothers’ or adolescents’ perception of their family’s internal strength and
durability. Furthermore, the degree to which family hardiness, a construct from coping
and stress theory, diverges from and converges with other measures of family resilience
and functioning is not well understood. In the following, emerging concerns about the
theoretical and empirical underpinnings of family hardiness will be discussed.
First and foremost, the results of the current study raise concerns about
operationalization of family hardiness, its current measurement, and its construct validity.
Relative to traditional measures of family functioning (e.g., the Family Assessment
Device; Epstein et al., 1983) that specifically reference the family unit in the anchoring of
its items (e.g., by referring to the family or by using first-person plural pronouns), the
Family Hardiness Index (FHI) includes a number of items that are quite general and may
be unrelated to the family unit or family functioning (e.g., “It is not wise to plan ahead
and hope because things do not turn out anyway” or “Life seems dull and meaningless”).
36
Furthermore, the scaling of the FHI conflates responses options that express that a
statement is false with ratings of inapplicability for the family (both responses receive a
score of zero). Thus, the obtained total and subscale FHI summed scores do not
distinguish between family disagreements and lack of hardiness and lack of applicability.
Moreover, the measure instructs participants to indicate the degree to which it describes
their family, suggesting a Likert-type response scale, but provides a true/false rating
scale. Considering the overall large percentage of reverse-coded items on the Family
Hardiness Index and its negative correlation with resilience in the current study, it may
also be possible that the Family Hardiness Index (FHI) is a measure of family
dysfunction rather than family strength.
However, a consideration of the correlations between subscales of the FHI and the
Family Assessment Device (FAD) indicates that family hardiness and its three
subcomponents are inconsistently related to other aspects of family functioning for
mothers and adolescents, raising some concerns about construct validity. More
specifically, the FHI control subscale did not correlate with other aspects of family
functioning for both dyad members. This may suggest that a family's sense of being in
control of family life may be unrelated to other aspects of family life, including the
family’s perception of their internal strength and durability. Additionally, the FHI
challenge subscale was associated with aspects of family functioning for adolescents but
not their mothers. Therefore, it may be possible that family functioning is more important
for adolescents’ perceptions of innovative and active family efforts than it is for their
mothers. Finally, although the FHI commitment subscale was associated with various
aspects of family functioning for both, adolescents, and their mothers, it surprisingly did
37
not show associations with global levels of family functioning. Thus, the question of
what construct is measured by the Family Hardiness Index needs further consideration as
correlations do not support the idea of family hardiness being a shared experience or a
family-level construct.
Relatedly, the extent to which hardiness can be understood as a family-level
construct also remains unknown. Up to this point, family hardiness has been primarily
assessed through an individual lens (i.e., by using the report of one individual family
member). The current study is one of very few studies to have investigated this construct
on a dyadic level. Considering that family hardiness is theorized to reflect a family unit’s
experience, it was expected that there would be shared variance in reports. However, t the
Family Hardiness Index was originally developed to assess an individual family
member’s perception of family hardiness rather than specifically developed to capture the
views of multiple family members. This may explain the unexpected lack of agreement
between mother’s and adolescent’s reports of their family’s hardiness. Furthermore, some
subscales of the Family Hardiness Index evidenced exceedingly low reliability in the
current sample and raise important questions about the degree to which the Family
Hardiness Index reliably captures the different facets of family hardiness.
Furthermore, high levels of individual resilience but low levels of family
hardiness were reported in the current sample; these findings are contrary to existing
theoretical frameworks. While the overall high average levels of individual resilience
among adolescents and their mothers may be best explained by the relatively high
community disaster resilience reported for the geographic region (Bakkensen et al.,
2017), the overall level of family hardiness was relatively low compared to other studies
38
that also examined family hardiness after a natural disaster (e.g., Hackbarth et al., 2012).
A possible explanation for this may be that the time period between the disaster and the
actual data collection was longer for this study than in previous research. Additionally,
the obtained results may be specific to the Mobile, Alabama public high school
community. Moreover, although it may be possible that the low levels of family
hardiness evident in the current study can co-exist with higher levels of individual
resilience, the lack of significant positive correlation between these variables challenges
existing theory. Thus, the theoretical and empirical overlap between individual and
family protective factors remains not fully understood and should be subject to future
research.
There also remain several theoretical questions pertaining to emotion
dysregulation as an individual risk factor. Based on assumptions derived from family
adaptive systems (FAS; Patterson, 2002), it was expected that family members' emotional
dysregulation would have a diminishing effect on family units’ capacity to endure and
recover from a stressful life challenge. However, in the current study, greater difficulties
with emotion regulation were shown to be predictive of higher levels of self-reported
family hardiness. A possible explanation for the surprising results may lay in the
operationalization of emotion regulation difficulties as a trait-level. Thus, it may be
possible that post-disaster emotion regulation, like resilience, has to be viewed in relation
to context (e.g., family interactions) and in response to stress (Cole et al., 2004; MacPhee
et al., 2015) rather than being conceptualized as an individual’s learned ability. In other
words, it may be possible that families are hardier if family members are able to
experience appropriate range of affect and exchange information about their difficulties
39
with emotion regulation with one another. In sum, it appears as if resilience and emotion
regulation can serve as both individual risk and protective factors that impact how
families navigate the impact of a stressor (e.g., natural disaster), subsequently mediating
the association between stressor and adaptation. However, the exact nature of such
processes remains subject to further research.
An alternative theory that may elucidate some of the processes surrounding stress
and adaptation of a family unit is the Theory of Resilience and Relational Load (TRRL;
Afifi et al., 2016). The TRRL is a framework on communication patterns underlying
adaptation and coping. Based on the theory of emotional capital (Feeney & Lemay,
2012), which postulates that dyads can endure stressors when dyad members have built
“emotional capital” within the relationship (Feeney & Lemay, 2012), the TRRL
conceptualizes resilience as a process of calibration. Hereby, positive adaptation to a
stressor is facilitated through relational partners having on-going conversations about
stress and continuous investment in their relationships. Through the maintenance of
family relationships, family members are thought to accumulate positive emotional
reserves.
Greater relationship maintenance behaviors (e.g., promoting feelings of validation
or security) minimizes perceptions of stress and reduces physiological stress as a whole
(Afifi et al., 2019). Moreover, family members are more likely to invest in their
relationships and build their emotional reserves if they have a more communal orientation
(e.g., belief that family members are “in it together”) in their approach to the stressor and
life in general (Afifi et al., 2016). Thus, even in the presence of emotion regulation
difficulties, the existence of emotional capital/positive emotional reserves could explain
40
why mothers’ and adolescents’ emotion regulation difficulties predicted higher levels of
family hardiness. Future research would benefit from incorporating communication
theories such as the TRRL to further explore interpersonal communication patterns that
relate to post-disaster family level processes on the adaptation to and coping with a
natural disaster including the role of family member’s risk and protective factors for
family hardiness.
Limitations
The results of the current study are limited by the relatively small sample size.
Although the dyads participating in the current study are theoretically distinguishable,
due to small sample size, dyads had to be treated as indistinguishable for the main
analyses. This in turn required that actor and partner effects had to be constrained to
equality, preventing us from examining whether adolescents and mothers’ perception of
their family hardiness were significantly different with respect to their individual
resilience and difficulties in emotion regulation. Additionally, since several of the Family
Hardiness Index subscales evidenced exceedingly low reliability, several of the proposed
hypotheses could not be tested.
Additionally, sample characteristics and recruitment procedures further limit the
generalizability of these results. In line with traditional gender-stereotypes about child-
rearing practices, primarily mothers, rather than fathers, elected to participate in the
present study, yielding a study sample of mother-adolescent dyads only. Consequently,
the results of the current study may not hold up for father-adolescent dyads, as well dyads
with grandparents, extended families, or other individuals serving as primary caregivers.
Additionally, the obtained results are highly specific to the West-mobile public high
41
school community. The destroyed high school primarily serves a low resource
community and participants received monetary compensation for their time. While this
may raise concerns regarding the impact of self-selection on the results of the current
study, it is important to note that there were no significant associations between
demographic variables, predictors, and outcomes.
Finally, the cross-sectional study design does not allow any causal inferences and
resilience is dynamic and subject to change based on the many interactions within and
between systems (Masten & Motti-Stefanidi, 2020). Thus, future research would benefit
from operationalizing resilience as a process, which would include the measurement at
multiple timepoints (Distelberg et al., 2018) to obtain a better understanding of resilience
and related processes after the occurrence of a natural disaster
Conclusions
The current study utilized post-disaster dyadic data to investigate how family
units adapt and cope with a natural disaster by exploring the dyadic effects of mother and
adolescent risk and protective factors on their perceptions of their family’s hardiness. The
results of the current study indicated that greater emotion regulation difficulties among
adolescents and mothers were related to higher levels of family hardiness. While the
exact mechanisms responsible for the findings of the current study remain subject for
future research, considering the overall challenges related to the recruitment of
adolescent-parent dyads after the occurrence of a natural disaster, the findings provide
new direction for stress and coping research. More specifically, future research would
benefit from a mixed-method, longitudinal approach to the study of family dyads post-
disaster. Finally, it would be important to consider the relational context of family
42
hardiness and how relational resilience processes vary across phases of adaptation to the
impact of a natural disaster.
43
TABLES
Table 1: Adolescent Participant Demographics
n (= 29)
%
Sex
Male
9
31.0
Female
20
69.0
Grade
Year 10
7
21.4
Year 11
10
34.5
Year 12
12
41.4
Ethnicity/Race
African American/Black
17
58.6
Asian
0
0.0
Hispanic White
1
3.4
Non-Hispanic White
8
27.6
Multiracial
3
10.3
Table 2: Mother Participant Demographics
n = (29)
%
Marital Status
Married
25
86.3
Divorced
2
6.9
Never Married
1
3.4
Unknown
1
3.4
Average Household Income
$15,000 – 19,999
3
10.3
$20,000 – 39,999
5
17.2
$40,000 – 59,999
11
38.0
$60,000 – 79,999
3
10.3
$80,000 – 99,999
3
10.3
>$100,000
2
6.9
Unknown
2
6.9
Ethnicity/Race
African American/Black
16
57.1
Asian
1
3.6
Hispanic White
0
0.0
Non-Hispanic White
10
35.7
Multiracial
1
3.6
Unknown
1
3.6
44
Table 3: Descriptive Statistics and Pearson Correlations for Resilience, Emotion
Dysregulation, and Family Hardiness
Variable
Resiliency
RS
Emotion
Dysregulation
DERS total
Family
Hardiness
FHI total
RS
-
-.39
*
-.35
DERS total
-.41
*
-
.18
FHI total
-.37
.49
*
-
Adolescents x Mothers
-.06
.32
*
.24
ICC N =29
-.06
.33
.24
Mean (SD)
Adolescents
146.93(17.0)
75.28(18.78)
20.45(8.11)
Mean (SD) Mothers
145.75(23.27)
72.61(17.81)
17.00(5.56)
Note. Adolescents' bivariate correlations are above the diagonal and mothers’ bivariate
correlations are below the diagonal. RS = Resilience Scale. DERS total = Difficulties in
Emotion Regulation Scale total score. FHI total = Family Hardiness Index total score.
*
p
< .05 (two-tailed).
**
p < .01 (two-tailed). ICC = intraclass correlation coefficient.
Table 4: Effect Estimates for the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model of Resilience
predicting Family Hardiness
CI
95%
for b
Effect
Estimate (b)
Lower
Upper
β
p
Intercept
18.89
16.43
21.36
<.001
Actor
-0.08
-0.18
0.02
-0.24
.136
Partner
0.01
-0.09
0.11
0.02
.894
k
-0.09
-4.96
4.12
Note. The intercept represents the predicted score for Family Hardiness when Resilience
for the average Resilience score as Resilience was grand-mean centered prior to the
analysis.
Table 5: Effect Estimates for the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model of Emotion
Dysregulation predicting Family Hardiness
CI
95%
for b
Effect
Estimate (b)
Lower
Upper
β
p
Intercept
18.73
16.30
21.17
<.001
Actor
0.13
0.02
0.25
0.35
.027
Partner
-0.07
-0.18
0.04
-0.19
.193
k
-0.56
-3.33
0.38
Note. The intercept represents the predicted score for Family Hardiness when Emotion
Dysregulation for the average Resilience score as Emotion Dysregulation was grand-
mean centered prior to the analysis.
45
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