13 general introduction understood as the capacity to ‘bounce back’ from stressful events (Bonanno, 2004; Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013; Galli & Vealey, 2008; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004). Yet, as mentioned above, we highlight that adapting to contemporary adversities may be about, not only preserving the status quo, but also challenging it, for example by finding alternative and better ways to live. As such, we propose that the (perceived) capacity to adapt to contemporary adversities is about more than persistence alone. The second component of transilience indicates the perceived capacity to adapt flexibly to an adversity, hence it reflects the extent to which people perceive a broad range of options to adapt to an adversity. Adaptability allows people to revise and switch between adaptation strategies when needed. This flexible approach may favour long-term adaptation to contemporary large-scale adversities, which likely require a variety of responses (Adger et al., 2009; Berrang-Ford et al., 2021; Cinner et al., 2018; Coccia, 2021; Reser & Swim., 2011; Vij et al., 2017, Yan et al., 2020). Adaptability differs from people’s perception of their ability to engage in certain adaptive behaviours (i.e., self-efficacy; Bandura, 1998; Rogers & Prentice-Dunn, 1997; Van Valkengoed & Steg, 2019b), as it reflects whether people perceive they have multiple options to adapt, rather than whether they think they can adapt at all. The third component of transilience indicates the perceived capacity to positively transform by adapting to contemporary adversities, hence it reflects the extent to which people perceive they can positively evolve by dealing with such adversities, for instance by learning something new. To the best of our knowledge, transformability is typically not examined in studies aiming to understand adaptive responses to contemporary challenges. Yet, as mentioned above, historical evidence and studies in other domains suggest that experiencing adversity can have beneficial effects. For example, people indicate that their lives have positively changed by dealing with health problems and trauma (Carver & Antoni, 2004; Helgeson et al., 2006), and dealing with severe childhood adversity can enable the development of unique strengths (Ellis et al., 2017; Jay, 2018). Thus, it seems plausible that contemporary adversities may also have beneficial effects, such as an increase in innovation and creativity (Fritze et al., 2008; Doherty, 2018; Degroot et al., 2021; IPCC, 2023). Transformability differs from the extent to which people think adaptation actions are effective in reducing their vulnerability to the risks (i.e. outcome efficacy; Bandura, 1998; Rogers & Prentice-Dunn, 1997; van Valkengoed & Steg, 2019b), as transformability reflects whether people perceive the possibility for positive and transformative outcomes deriving from dealing with contemporary adversities. In sum, higher transilience means that people more strongly perceive they can persist in the face of a certain adversity, can have a broad range of options to deal 1
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