85 individual transilience in the face of the covid-19 pandemic acuteness posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. People reported perceived transilience in Italy, which was the first country in Europe hit by the pandemic and had significant morbidity and mortality rates (Bezzini et al., 2021; Masotti et al., 2022), and in the Netherlands, where the effects of the pandemic were comparatively less severe and the country had more time to prepare (Bastoni et al., 2021). Notably, individuals in The Netherlands perceived transilience both at the onset of the pandemic and later in time, when the situation worsened. Thus, our research shows that people perceive they can do more than ‘bounce back’ and see opportunities for positive change in the face of adversities other than climate change risks, even when the threats are very acute and severe, and even when the levels of threat differ across specific contexts and time points. The Relationship Between Transilience and Adaptive Responses May be Context Dependent Second, we found partial support for Hypothesis 2. As expected, in the Dutch sample, higher transilience was associated with more individual and collective adaptation behaviours, cognitive coping, higher levels of general well-being, and experiencing more personal positive change because of the pandemic. These results were consistent across different time points, despite variations in average levels of the variables. However, in the Italian sample, higher transilience was only associated with experiencing more personal positive change, while transilience was not significantly related to individual and collective adaptation behaviours, cognitive coping, and wellbeing. Overall, our findings indicate that perceiving higher levels of transilience may be linked to a wide array of adaptive responses and better mental health, with some relationships consistent across time points and others consistent across different countries, although this seems to depend on the context examined. The positive association between transilience and cognitive coping, however, was supported only at T2 of Study 2. The lack of significant relationships in Italy between transilience and individual and collective adaptation behaviours, cognitive coping, and well-being may be attributed to the highly restrictive measures imposed by the Italian government during our study period. These policies severely limited individuals’ freedom and choices regarding their behaviour and potential strategies for maintaining well-being, resulting in a particularly constraining environment. It is likely that due to such dominant and limiting contextual factors, psychological factors like transilience did not play a strong role in predicting adaptation behaviours and well-being. In The Netherlands, instead, where the government responses were relatively less restrictive and allowed for greater freedom, psychological factors like transilience could play a more prominent role and promote adaptation behaviours and general well-being. These results are in line 3
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