Mapping resilience through network analysis: Navigating adversity and carrying on

Guided by the ecological-resilience model (Panzeri et al., 2021), this study examined how individual, community, and societal resources interconnect to sustain resilience outcomes such as psychological distress and subjective well-being during later stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Resilience was conceptualized as a dynamic, multilevel system of interdependent protective and risk factors operating across ecological layers.

Psychological network analyses were conducted separately for two waves of data, encompassing indicators of resilience outcomes, individual strengths, community and social resources, and major life experiences. Network estimation and stability analyses were complemented by an inductive analysis of emergent clusters and pathways to interpret the structural patterns of resilience within the ecological framework.

The networks demonstrated a stable and coherent organization across the two waves, with mental health challenges and well-being indicators emerging as the most prominent nodes and clusters of psychological strengths, social connectedness, community belonging, and contextual life experiences forming the surrounding structure.

Findings provide empirical support for the ecological-resilience model, demonstrating that adaptive functioning arises from the interplay among individual capacities, community relationships, and broader societal contexts. The inductive interpretation revealed distinct pathways linking personal and collective resources to resilience outcomes, highlighting that recovery and adaptation after adversity are sustained through dynamic, multilevel resource systems rather than isolated individual attributes. Taken together, these findings support an inside-out ecological organization of resilience, with the COVID-19 pandemic illuminating shifting tensions between individual and collective pathways and positioning resilience as a dynamic, multilevel process rather than a purely individual attribute. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).