The role of positive appraisal style and positive expectations in student emotional resilience

Emotional resilience is an individual difference dimension, reflecting variation in the degree to which people show better or worse emotional well-being relative to what is predicted based on stressor exposure. Given that young adults commencing university studies commonly encounter a broad range of potential stressors, understanding the mechanisms that underpin emotional resilience could inform strategies for optimising student emotional well-being. While emotional reactivity is proximally associated with resilient outcomes, the factors that temporally precede and predict such reactivity are incompletely understood. In a serial mediation model, we sought to test the capacity of positive appraisal style and positive expectations to predict subsequent resilient outcomes. The present study assessed a sample of 95 young adults commencing a new year at university in a longitudinal design across the first semester. Using Partial Least Squares Structure Equation Modelling, the observed pattern supported the hypothesis under test. Specially, relatively positive appraisal style early in semester predicted relatively positive expectations mid-semester, which in turn predicted the late semester measure of emotional reactivity that was proximally associated with emotionally resilient outcomes. We discuss how the advances to understanding enabled by this study could potentially be exploited to enhance emotional well-being in young adults. • Assessed predictors of emotional resilience across first semester of university • Late semester resilient outcomes predicted by early semester appraisal style • Association was serially mediated by expectancies and emotional reactivity. • Findings suggest possible ways to enhance university students' emotional well-being.