The Impact of Control over Difficulties on Resilience: Focusing on the Nature of Difficulties in Japan

Abstract Introduction: This study aims to examine the relationship between the nature of difficulties, the sense of control over them, and resilience. Methods: We recruited survey respondents through Lancers, Inc., a company that provides crowdsourcing services in Japan. The survey was conducted in August 2024. Three hundred seventy-two Japanese participants aged 20 years and over completed the survey, responding to questions about whether difficulties they had experienced were related to achieving their goals, the perceived difficulty of these experiences, and their sense of control over them. They also completed the Bidimensional Resilience Scale, which measures innate and acquired resilience. The data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficients and hierarchical multiple regression. Results: Participants’ mean age was 36.71 ± 8.84. 49.19% were male. A sense of control over one’s difficulties was positively associated with innate resilience ( β = 0.28, P < 0.001). Experiencing difficulties related to achieving goals was positively associated with acquired resilience ( β = 0.12, P = 0.034). A sense of control over one’s difficulties was significantly related to acquired resilience only when the difficulty level was low ( M - 1 standard deviation) ( β = 0.28, t = 3.33, P < 0.001). Conclusion: We found that experiencing difficulties in goal achievement, having a sense of control over these difficulties, and coping effectively with moderate challenges may be linked to increased resilience. Our findings suggest that they may contribute to the development of clinical psychological interventions aimed at improving resilience by targeting the sense of control.