137 general discussion promotes adaptation actions and mental health, in the face of other adversities and in other countries and cultures than those studied in this PhD dissertation. Future studies could adapt the transilience scale presented in this dissertation, both at the individual and at the collective level, to study transilience in other domains such as personal adversities (e.g., injuries or illnesses), natural disasters, or economic crises. Moreover, future investigations could further test how experiencing one adversity may influence transilience, adaptation actions, and mental health related to other adversities. Notably, in one of our studies we explored and found that showing higher transilience in the face of one adversity (i.e., COVID-19) may enhance adaptive capacity (i.e., resilience) and intention to adapt to another adversity (i.e. climate change; see Chapter 3). This implies that higher transilience in one domain may allow people to perceive they are capable to adapt in general, and in turn be more likely to engage in adaptation actions and display better mental health in the face of other adversities. As such, transilience may be conceptualised as a general perceived adaptive capacity that is relevant across many different adversities. In this regard, it is important to understand whether people can perceive transilience also on a general level (i.e., in the face of ‘adverse events in life’), and to examine the degree to which this general transilience relates to transilience in the face of specific adversities, as well as to adaptation actions and mental health in the context of such specific adversities. Moreover, future studies could investigate the role of transilience in other countries, especially developing countries in Africa and Asia. This is particularly relevant as nonWEIRD countries are most vulnerable to contemporary adversities such as climate change, and hence face a more urgent need to adapt (Madhav et al., 2018; Mertz et al., 2009; de Souza et al., 2015; Thomas et al., 2020). Considering that in those countries people are more likely to have direct experience with adversities like climate-related hazards and epidemics, it is important to examine whether the levels of transilience are higher or lower compared to those found in the countries we studied in this PhD dissertation. Additionally, it is important to understand whether transilience promotes adaptation actions and well-being also in non-WEIRD countries, given that people’s freedom to act may be more limited by constraints such as poverty, lack of resources, or inadequate infrastructure (see de Souza et al., 2015). Notably, our findings suggest that the extent to which the context is restrictive may influence the strength of the relationships between transilience, adaptation actions and mental health, respectively (see Chapter 3), suggesting that transilience is less predictive in contexts and among groups that have less freedom to act. Based on our results, it may be that transilience does not promote adaptation actions and mental health in developing countries where people are severely limited in their possibility to act. Still, it should be stressed that in this PhD dissertation we did not formally examine which factors and variables influence 5
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