The Resiliency Model of Role Performance for Service Members, Veterans, and their Families: A Focus on Social Connections and Individual Assets

Abstract

The Road of Life, a life course metaphor, is used as the backdrop for a theoretically anchored model, The Resiliency Model of Role Performance, which has been developed to account for variation in the ability of service members and their families to meet their role responsibilities in the context of military life and duties. This model incorporates a focus on both individual assets and the social context in which individuals and families are embedded. The model provides a conceptual anchor for the Support and Resiliency Inventory—an online assessment tool for service members and the civilian spouses of service members. Implications for testing the model and its further development are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Resiliency
• role performance
• service members
• military families
• social connections
• individual assets

Notes

The authors appreciate the helpful comments from Dr. John Nelson, Dr. Jeff Paddock, Dr. Michelle Sherman, and Dr. Irene Zipper on earlier drafts of this paper.

1. For a comprehensive review of the field of positive psychology, see Christopher Peterson's (2006) A Primer in Positive Psychology. For recent reviews and critiques of positive psychology, see Becker & Marecek (2008); Miller (2008); and Ruark (2009).

2. In the MC, these assessment tools are named the Unit Assets Inventory (for Marines) and the Spouse Asset Inventory (for civilian spouses). They were developed as Family Readiness Assessment Tools (FRAT). We have recommended to the MC that the names of these assessment tools be changed to the SRI-Marine and the SRI-Spouse to align them with the AF tools. These are more descriptive and marketable names.