2020-2021 Faculty Research Grants

Harvey Burnett (Behavioral Sciences)

An Examination of the Proactive and Reactive Resilience Pathways: Expanding Our Understanding of Psychological Body Armor

This study will replicate, refine and expand on Burnett, Pichot and Bailey’s (2019) original research that examined the relationship between Psychological Body Armor’s (PBA) two unique interacting human protective pathways (proactive and reactive resilience) on overall resilience.  The new study will expand on the number of subjects involved.  Data will be collected from a minimum of 450 volunteer subjects from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) web-based crowdsourcing platform and a minimum of 200 volunteer subjects that are members of the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF).  This study will utilize the same measures from the original study but use a modified demographic questionnaire and the following more reliable and valid measures for the proactive pathway: Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS), Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), and Posttraumatic Growth Inventory short form (PTG).  For the reactive pathway, the following more reliable and valid measures will be used: International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), PROMIS Sleep Disturbance Short Form (PROMIS), Rapid Eating Assessment for Participants – Shortened Version (REAPS), New General Self-efficacy Scale (NGSES), and a 9-item questionnaire that assesses a person’s level of access to common crisis intervention services.  Results are expected to replicate the Burnett and colleagues original study for the MTurk sample.  For the ICISF member sample, results are expected remain robust as the Michigan Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) responder conference sample, however positive personal relationship with others should emerge as a significant predictor of resilience for the reactive pathway.