Judith Johnson PhD

Resilience Appraisals Scale

The Schematic Appraisals Model of Suicide (SAMS; Johnson et al. 2008) suggests that three types of positive self-appraisals may be buffer individuals from experiencing suicidal thoughts in the face of stress. The Resilience Appraisals Scale (RAS; Johnson et al., 2010a) was designed to assess these appraisals. Research has since used the RAS to measure resilience in younger and older adults (Johnson et al., 2010a; Gooding et al., 2011), individuals experiencing PTSD (Panagioti et al., 2012), and individuals experiencing psychosis (Johnson et al., 2010b). 

The scale contains 12 items which measure an individual’s appraisals of their ability to cope with emotions, solve problems, and gain social support. Responses are rated on a 5 point scale from ‘strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘strongly agree’ (5), and total scores are gained by summing item scores. T

  • To download a copy of the RAS, click here.
  • To download a copy of the RAS translated to Spanish, click here.

 

Resilience Appraisals Scale items (subscales in parentheses)

  1. If I were to have problems, I have people I could turn to (Social Support)
  2. My family or friends are very supportive of me (Social Support)
  3. In difficult situations, I can manage my emotions (Emotion Coping)
  4. I can put up with my negative emotions (Emotion Coping)
  5. When faced with a problem I can usually find a solution (Situation Coping)
  6. If I were in trouble, I know of others who would be able to help me (Social Support)
  7. I can generally solve problems that occur (Situation Coping)
  8. I can control my emotions (Emotion Coping)
  9. I can usually find a way of overcoming problems (Situation Coping)
  10. I could find family of friends who listen to me if I needed them to (Social Support)
  11. If faced with a set-back, I could probably find a way round the problem (Situation Coping)
  12. I can handle my emotions (Emotion Coping)

 

If you’re interested to find out more about my work in resilience, please see my blog posts on what the concept of resilience is, and how we can build resilience by tackling perfectionism and building our self-esteem.