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Resilience denotes an ability to withstand or cope effectively with levels of stress that would cause substantial distress in other individuals. These researchers used data on 7500 adult dizygotic and monozygotic twin pairs at two distinct time points to explore the genetic underpinnings of resilience.
Resilience was defined as the difference between actual and predicted levels of distress on 27 items from the Symptom Checklist–90 in relation to recent stresses (number of life events). Highly resilient individuals had less than the level of distress predicted by number of life events. At each time point, genetic factors contributed approximately 31% to resilience, although different genes were operative for males and females.