Undergraduate Honors Theses

Date of Award

Spring 4-2020

Program

Psychology

Supervisor

J. Bruce Morton

Second Advisor

Cassandra Lowe

Abstract

The present study investigated the potential effect of psychological resilience on the relationship between adverse childhood experience (ACEs) and self-regulation. There were 18 adult participants (five males and 13 females). The ages ranged from 19 to 30 (M = 23.11, SD = 3.39) years old. To measure psychological resilience, ACEs, and self-regulation, participants were required to respectively finish the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, the Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire, and the Two-Urn Task. Contrary to expectation, data analysis showed that the negative correlation between ACEs and self-regulation remained statistically significant regardless of the resilience level, suggesting that resilience did not alleviate the effect of ACEs on self-regulation. The misconceptualization of psychological resilience in the present study might contribute to the lack of moderating effect from resilience. Moreover, resilience did not correlate with ACEs, indicating that resilience develops independently from ACEs. Resilience also did not correlate with self-regulation, suggesting that resilience and coping may be two distinct constructs. Future research that could replicate and extend the present study was discussed.

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