Функции личностных ресурсов в ситуации экономического кризиса

Abstract

The focus of the paper is the contribution of personality resources (optimism, hardiness, tolerance to ambiguity, self-efficacy, purpose in life), to the dynamics of subjective well-being under the pressure of economic crisis. As expected, personality resources have both filtering and buffering functions, influencing the subjective impact of economic crisis upon the life circumstances as well as subjective well-being. 126 adult Muscovites participated in the first wave of the study during the fervor of the crisis in Russia in Spring 2009 filling out the questionnaires addressing personal resources, subjective well-being, vitality, and questions about the impact of economic crisis on their life circumstances. In the second wave 18 months later the levels of subjective well-being and vitality were measured again in 86 of the participants. The results showed that the effect of the economic crisis was associated with personality resources more than with social-demographic data. The filtering function was revealed only for purpose in life and self-control coping while for hardiness, optimism and planning coping the effect was much weaker. Buffering function showed itself more pointedly than filtering one. Moreover, the buffering function was shown for all the resources separately as well as for integral index of personality resources (IPR). However, buffering function was revealed only regarding the dynamics of subjective well-being as a dependent variable, but not for the dynamics of vitality. In particular, the subjective well-being of those who had low level of IPR depended more on the effect of economic crisis than in those who had high level of IPR. Even more, in the second wave for the participants who reported being highly affected by the crisis but had a high level of IPR showed high level of subjective well-being.